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gb-patch · 3 years

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Ask Answers: May 15th Part 1

It’s been longer than usual since our last answer session, so I’m answering a ton of questions today! It’s so big I split it into two parts. Thank you for the patience on getting a response to these.

Thanks for reaching out to us with your questions and kind words ^^!

Sorry if this has been asked before or isn't something you can say but is there anyway for Cove to confess in step 4? I wanted him to confess in step 3 and followed all the steps to make him do it but ended up texting my family instead of Cove at the end.

Yeah, Cove can confess in Step 4!

Hello! I heard that Cove is on the spectrum, albeit undiagnosed. As someone who is ND, this makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. I literally was brought to tears! Thank you for that!

Out of curiosity, will Cove be diagnosed in Step 4? I have a strong feeling y’all won’t make it a HUGE deal/make it out to be negative, so I’m not worried about that whatsoever! I’m just curious just he’ll off handedly mention it? Or will it just not be touched upon at all (which is ok!)?

Either way is ok, I’m just curious!

I’m happy it made you happy! Admittedly, Cove simply being someone with autism that grew up not being diagnosed was something I included for myself. I didn’t really think anyone would notice or ask about it, aha. But players did start to have questions about his traits, so I started to talk about it outside of the game. It’s great to see it get such a positive response and now I do feel like having it be a non-topic may have been the wrong choice and bringing it up would’ve been good in terms of having positive representation for that. I don’t know if I’ll find a way to mention it in Step 4 now, with how far along the game is, but I am at least thinking about it when originally it wasn’t something I really even considered.

Hey! Just wanted to say thank you for Our Life. It's been a bright spot and a needed escape in what's otherwise been a crummy year. I know you just did a Q&A post but I figured I'd ask anyway. Was just curious about Step 4. Will it be similar to the other Steps in that it consists of several different moments or will it just be one long sequence?

Step 4 is shorter than the prior Steps because it’s just an epilogue rather than a full arc of a story. It’ll consist of scenes that all happen in a set row one after the other. There won’t be a collection of Moments to choose from. But it’ll still be very sweet and fun.

¡hola!, you see, first I want to say that I love Our Life! (°◡°♡) and I have 2 important questions, would Cove cry watching titanic? and what is the saddest part according to him? (sorry for my english)

Titanic would make him cry. He’d probably think the parts showing people who aren’t able to make it to the life boats/are choosing to stay and go down with the ship were the saddest.

Hello, I wanted to ask how much you earn with creating games? Like is it possible to make a living? Thank you >< <3

How much I earn varies a lot month to month based on Steam sales, Patreon backers, and how many projects are in full production at the time. It’s also hard to say how much I make historically, since that also changes dramatically year by year. But I do earn enough to work on these games full time! I really appreciate all the support that allows me to do that.

Hey!! I was wondering for the 18+ Our Life moment, will there be an emphasis on safety/comfort for all involved? I feel like there would be just going off of what the rest of the game is like, but I wanted to ask

Yes! Cove is a nervous boy himself and also super cautious about doing anything the MC doesn’t like, so clear consent from both is absolutely needed for anything to happen. It’s a conversational sexy times Moment with stops/starts so the two can talk about how they’re feeling, rather than a heat of the moment just going for it kind of thing.

Hey!! I was wondering how long the wedding dlc would be? Will it be broken up into moments, or just one big event?

It’s one long series of scenes all in a row rather than a collection of Moments to pick from. It’s the shortest and the least expensive of all the DLCs. It’s not super crucial to get and those who aren’t into big weddings can totally skip it without worry.

HELLO AMAZING DEVS 👋 i am hopelessly in love with the worst guy ever (jeremy king) and because of this i have a really stupid question: does he really hate people who are nice to him? TvT he’s too cute to be mean to istg it’s a miracle JB held the urge to be consistently nice to him bc just look at his FACE he is so cute! thank you for jeremy’s route it’s so lovely (and awful bc he’s scum 11/10) it gave me so much laughs LMAO i hope you guys have a good day!!

Haha, thank you. He doesn’t hate them but he’s certainly not pleased with them. Jeremy is either uncomfortable with or annoyed by people being sweet on him, depending on how they approach it. He’s far more comfortable with jerkiness. It lets him relax and he can be himself without it being a problem, since he’s also a jerk. He feels a level of guilt being such a little punk to kind people, not enough to be a better person but still.

Has Cove dated or been interested in someone other than MC?

Nope! He stays single over the course of the game if he’s not with the MC.

Is Step 4 more mature? Or it's gonna be set in similar atmosphere as Step 3?

Step 4 is a similar atmosphere as Step 3. Though, it’s actually kind of less mature-topic heavy than Step 3 since it’s just a ‘hey, let’s check in on the gang to see what they’re up to’ style epilogue rather than a story arc with serious issues.

will there be new music for now and forever?? or will the old our life music be reused?

It’s gonna be a brand new soundtrack. We’ll be opening up a job position for that soon.

Hi, is it okay if we use the assets in Our Life (like the sprites) for fanworks or fan content content, like edits?

Sure! Just as long as you don’t use the assets made by those artists to make money.

Quick clarification on Step 3 choices: I hope I didn't come off rude (because I LOVE the game, really!!), I was just curious because the intro threw me off at times. For example, you could choose how you felt about Elizabeth in Step 2 (Dinner), but during the Step 3 intro, it says that you got closer to Liz and I didn't get a choice in it.

For the example, it can’t be helped that you’re closer to Liz in Step 3 than you were in Step 2 because she’s inherently closer to the MC regardless of whether you liked her or not in Step 2. Her feelings are out of your control and the game isn’t so dramatic that you can push her affection away and not let her bond with you, haha. But ‘being closer’ can still be relative. For some people maybe that means you’re best buds now and for others it might just mean you’re not fighting all the time any more. If there’s other parts you want to mention, feel free to let us know.

Did the illustrator for Our Life change?

We have many OL artists! The main artists who set the game’s style haven’t changed, but there’s multiple other artists who help finish assets.

So Miranda's type is confident and outgoing, huh? So...does that mean Terri's her type?? 👀

Haha, sorry for the late reply on this. As you might’ve seen in our post yesterday- yeah that is her type.

Hey! First, I just want to say I've really enjoyed how detailed OL got with gender identity and sexuality and how respectful the topics were handled! It's been so wonderful to play since the experiences could be close to my own (I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up at parts). Second, I was wondering, would future games explore the topic of polyamory? I'd love to see more visual novels allow room for that and I saw you've explored the topic before.

Keep up the amazing work! ♡

Thank you! We do want to include polyamory in at least some of our future projects. Floret Bond, which might be what you’re referring to when mentioning how we’ve explored the topic before, is on hold unfortunately. So right now I’m not sure when something might release or what will be the first game of ours to come out with poly relationships (we might do something else before FB is done). We’ll have see how things ends up coming together.

Hey um. I feel like im not allowed to ask this on the private discord cuz people will yell at me but why is there so much focus on OL2 and not finishing OL1 stuff? I like the new people but i kind of want to finish cove's story and get derek and baxter stuff first. didn't people pay for it?

I’m sorry, I don’t understand entirely what’s making that situation a concern. There’s a channel in the discord for critique where no one is allowed to comment back. People can voice things they’re worried about without any way for others to push back on it. And the two teams working on the OL games are different. We try to post pretty often about how we’re hiring brand new people to start on Our Life: Now & Forever. The OL1 team is all still working on OL1 like normal. There’s only more updates on the Patreon for OL2 because the expansions to the first game are mostly script-based at this point while OL2 is just starting to get all its art, which means there’s a lot more to show off as previews.

Also, there was a Kickstarter for the first Our Life, if that’s what you mean by people paying for it. But one of the stretch goals was to start Our Life 2 early, before fully completing Our Life 1, so that the new game could be out sooner. It wouldn’t make sense to stop doing OL2 work because that would be going against what backers were promised. Maybe you didn’t get the full story before and hopefully this clears it up!

Hello! I know it's up to every player but.. What is your recommendation for playing order? Did you ever had any timeline events planned?

I didn’t make the events with a planned timeline. The events got made simply as I had ideas for them and then I just kind of organized them from left to right on the screen in an order to space out more dramatic ones between more lighthearted ones. Any order the player wants to go with is totally valid!

Hi! It's Step 4 a paid dlc or update? And how long it's planned to be? Ps. Love the game!

The Step 4 epilogue is free! The Cove Wedding DLC does cost money, though. Those are planned to be shorter than the usual Steps/DLCs.

Will we have options for what sort of job the MC might have by the time step 4 takes place?

Yeah, you can. It’s not super exact or detailed, but there are options about it.

Is there a pandemic in Our Life world, or is it just in a better timeline with no pestilence?

Our Life is pandemic-free! That didn’t exist when we began working on the project and it’s not something we’d like to feature in this story now that it has unfortunately come along, aha.

Hi, you said that you can play tic-tac-toe or hangman with Cove in Boating if you're sick/scared but I keep getting tic-tac-toe. Am I doing something wrong?

After being sick/scared you have to continue to be upset/unwell. If you calm down and decide to just chill you’ll end up playing tic-tac-toe.

Hi, GB Patch! Since Lee was initially commissioned to only appear in two Steps does this mean she won't appear in the Wedding DLC? I really like her character so it'll be a little weird to not have our cousin at our wedding, aha.

She is gonna be in Step 4/the wedding DLC after all! We’re still working with her creator to make sure it fits with what they wanted.

Is Sunset Bird based on a real place? Asking for a friend, not trying to move there or anything. 👀

It’s based on small beach towns in So-Cal, but not one specific town you could go see in real life, I’m afraid. It’d be nice if it was real, though.

—– —– —– —–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life: Now & Forever #ask #gb patch #gb patch games #xoxo droplets

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eirichele · 4 years

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a VERY in depth look at fire emblem: three houses and its grooming problem

OR: how this game managed to make an accurate portrayal of grooming and exactly how it made it palatable

(warning: really long. though to be fair, the length is mostly screenshots. you can also read this in google docs)

***

SO i’ve been wanting to write something Formal and In Depth for a while, because this game’s reception has been a nightmare for me and other csa victims and quarantine hit, so i finally had time. i just really wanted to get all my thoughts in one place before i move on from 3h. i’m basically done talking about this after this one because... idk what else i could say that hasn’t been said here, really. fe has history with this, and the in-game excuses ring hollow when we know the fe devs disregard csa victims at every turn while pandering to male gamers who love sexualised teenage girls.

long, long analysis under the cut:

Some previous context: Fire Emblem games have a history of normalising harmful romances

It’s understandable for many to not know the history of the series since 3H was insanely successful and it brought a lot of new fans. Fire Emblem has always been a character driven game where making your units bond was encouraged both for gameplay and story reasons. Some end in special romantic epilogues, and some of those relationships were concerning to say the least: Sylvia, 14 years old, can marry every eligible man in Genealogy of the Holy War, Jill from Radiant Dawn, 18, can marry her father’s protegé who is 34. This is not a new phenomenon for the series, it just became more noticeable and malicious post-Awakening, because it became first person fanservice.

FE decided to rehaul the series sometime in 2011 by including dating sim elements, which made it explode in popularity. Avatars were introduced to represent the player in-game, allowing them to marry whoever they wanted. The first game to include a pseudo-dating sim was Awakening, released in 2012. The player can marry every named playable character, on top of the usual FE shipping mechanics . Donnel, Nowi and Ricken, all children, are part of your party. Nowi is a thousand year old dragon that looks like a child of 11-15. She loves playing, and throws tantrums, and overall acts very childishly, but the narrative insists that she’s really an adult feigning childishness.

In Fire Emblem lore, dragons are veeeery slow ageing people with the power to transform into dragons, which means they can be biologically still children even when they’re hundreds or thousands of years old. Tiki, another similar character, is considered a child in Shadow Dragon by her adult dragon family while explicitly being around Nowi’s age. Despite evidence to the contrary, Awakening treats Nowi like an adult who can marry. Fire Emblem had previously included many dragon child characters in the past, but none were romantic options for anyone, and they were considered a younger sibling of sorts. Nowi was a first in the series, and after her inclusion these romances became common with characters like Nyx in Fates and Flayn and Sothis in Three Houses. Worth noting is her design, which is incredibly sexualised. A (not so) fun fact is that the outfit designer of Awakening and Fates was none other than Three Houses’ future director, Toshiyuki Kusakihara:

Ricken and Donnel are just regular 13-15 year old boys. No magic. Other adult characters and your avatar just marry them, and it’s stated they will have children in the future. The next game, Fates, actually managed to outdo this somehow: Your pedophilic romance options are now five, and unlike Awakening’s avatar Robin, whose age was unknown and could potentially be portrayed in their mid-teens, Corrin canonically is in the 18-21 age range, making this unambiguous pedophilia. Fates is a very standout game when it comes to Fire Emblem’s worst parts: There’s no “children from the future” excuse for the avatar having children like in Awakening. The avatar impregnates all spouses (or gets pregnant) and has the child after an in-game time skip, which means you can canonically impregnate your approximately 15 year old sister in a Fire Emblem game. You really do not want to stan these devs.

pictured: definitely not 18, even if the english localization really tried to pull that.

Which is yet another thing in this game: Incest with adopted siblings is possible and even encouraged. Incest is constantly fetishized through the character of Camilla, who is an attractive and sexualized older sister obsessed with the main character. Another (not so) fun fact is that most characters will continue to call you ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in the story even if you’re married because Fire Emblem rarely changes the story to fit with your marriage options. The most insidious thing about the incest and pedophilic couples in Fates is that they’re completely normalized. It’s not shown as abusive, and they look like normal couples that could even look cute out of context. They confess their love, tease each other, blush and have cutesy epilogues.

pictured: marrying your sibling and a literal child

All of this is to end with the conclusion that this is a constant pattern with Fire Emblem, especially the ones with marriage. Any potentially awful relationships portrayed are not outwardly abusive. You won’t catch Xander gaslighting Corrin, or anything. They’re a “cute” relationship that just happens to be incest. Their interactions are not outwardly unhealthy, and it’s tailor made for ‘’’harmless’’’ shipping, but in the end, it’s incest and pedophilia portrayed as a valid pairing that’s “healthy” by all means. It’s normalization of something that’s objectively horrifying to live through. As a CSA victim, Fates literally made me quit the franchise for all the years it was popular.

When Three Houses announced that it would take place in a school while you play a teacher, after seeing all of this play out all FE fans could feel was dread. When 3H announced even later that all romance would take place post-time skip everyone forgot about their reservations instantly— ignoring the fact that everyone being over 18 when marriage happens doesn’t absolve all potential problems with predatory writing. How you write a couple with an age gap is critical. Moving on with Actual Three Houses:

Byleth has a canon age unlike Corrin and Robin, but the game tries to hide it

Corrin and Robin were both avatars meant to be somewhat customized. Byleth cannot be customized. They have a set appearance and age. You can choose Byleth’s name, gender and birthday when you start up the game, but Byleth canonically cannot be born anywhere after September 20th 1159, their “canon” birthday, since their father states in his diary that they’re already alive. 3H starts in the year 1180, which makes Byleth 20 or already 21 depending on their chosen birthday.

All other Three Houses characters have their ages shown clearly in their unit menu, and all bios update accordingly when you learn new information, including yours. Byleth’s age is revealed in a cutscene, but despite this, the game tries to “hide” their age. This is all Byleth has in their bio even well into the endgame:

It’s presumably so the player can “headcanon” their age, as the player avatar, but they still have a canon age, because they’re not a customizable one. It’s a very odd design choice that makes no sense until you consider that the game is romantically pushing teenagers at you. Romanceable students range from 14 to 22 years old before the time skip, but the great majority are in the 15-18 range. Early on, when you introduce yourself to your students, they seem taken aback by how young you are and comment how you seem like you’re “their age.” This is your only dialogue option in response:

No sixteen year old has ever told a twenty/-one year old that they’re the same age, but this is anime high school dating sim logic. An addendum is that this game has incredibly shallow dialogue options to hide how linear it really is, and this is the first glaring instance. This comes up later on with the romance options—you have little to no options to reject a student’s advances. Boundaries as both a player and RPG protagonist are non-existent in this game.

pictured: “yes” and “sure why not” dialogue options to agreeing to meet with a student alone. linhardt just turned 17 last month

Byleth can flirt pre-time skip

Most of your units are students, thus all romance should in theory, stay in the war phase…. Which doesn’t happen at all. All the narrative framing of characters’ “closeness” and foreshadowing of romance are definitely a part of the school phase. The worst offender by far is an in-game event called the Goddess Tower, the school’s local romantic spot. It’s said in universe that a man and a woman who make a vow there on a specific night will stay together forever, and this is a prelude to the marriage scenes five years later, which will take place in that Tower. You can even pick who to bring with you to the Tower, and this is what Byleth says to themselves before the drop down menu shows up:

this is one of those lines that’s like semi-innocuous, since byleth is addressing the player here, but what the fuck is a teacher doing thinking about a student “that way”???? my girl doesn’t know there will be a 5 year time skip where they’re going to be legal she’s just saying this about a bunch of sixteen year olds.

The Goddess Tower itself is a mess of bungled flirting and unnatural romantic scenes, made all the worse by the fact that you can only trigger this scene with a student. Older characters like Seteth, Catherine and Shamir are locked out of the Goddess Tower. They can’t be picked from the menu, and if they’re your highest support, the game will default to the next highest supported student. Here’s some lines from Ingrid’s scene:

ingrid is 17 when this takes place. the youngest byleth possible is well over 21 and the oldest is turning 22 next month

Check out this post for more examples of the Goddess Tower. Byleth’s dialogue options here are right out of a god damn PSA about child safety. They genuinely come off as a huge creep here, especially “Just the two of us….” My dude.

Thankfully one of the few instances where you can turn the student down, but notable anyway. Dorothea’s C support, where you have the option of following her flirty lead, and her response will be the same regardless of your choice:

Another infamous bit of inappropriate flirting is Edelgard’s Japanese C1 support, which you’re likely to unlock before her 18th birthday in June because it’s her very first support:

This was thankfully removed in the English version (Though she still has the same flustered reaction), but the intentions are there. Curiously, I’ve seen many supporters of the Byleth/Edelgard ship say they were upset this was removed, while simultaneously denying the ship has any grooming connotations whatsoever— when an authority figure making ha ha, unless? 😳 sexual jokes in front of underage/barely legal kids to see their reaction is textbook grooming:

Once a trusting or special relationship is created, the offender may carefully test the victim’s reaction to sex. (x)

Not helping is the fact that Edelgard falling in love with Byleth during the school phase is practically canon judging by dialogue in CF of her missing you “more” than the others. Which leads to:

Some interactions pre-time skip resemble grooming tactics

In fans’ minds the lack of boundaries are somewhat mitigated by Byleth’s supposed good intentions, and it’s common to hear fans say Byleth obviously didn’t go to Garreg Mach intending to marry one of the kids they’re teaching because grooming must be malicious from the start. However, it’s well known that unlike premeditated abuse of younger kids, sexual abuse of older teens often happens by “accident”

In contrast, educators who teach at the late middle and high school level target victims in this age range. They might be outstanding teachers, although they may also be mediocre (Shakeshaft, 2003). Sexual abuse at this level may be less premeditated and planned and more often a result of bad judgment (Shakeshaft, 2004). (x)

In other words, by putting zero boundaries between teacher and students and enabling weird situations, which is 3H to a T. Many students flirt, but Byleth doesn’t say anything, or even flirts back.

Secondly, Byleth is like… barely a character, so this isn’t meant to be a callout post accusing them of being a manipulative abuser or whatever, because this is about the dev team putting teenagers in these flirty positions to satisfy the player that Byleth is meant to represent. Byleth is just the plot device they use to do so. People often say this flirting isn’t grooming because Byleth has “good intentions,” but they’re a self-insert, and a self-insert doesn’t have to have any in-universe intentions because the outside writing drives their actions— the thing is we KNOW these writers are not above writing pedophilia as harmless romance. People project good intentions on Byleth, because that’s the avatar. You’re supposed to project on them. This of course includes their “good intentions,” and when I play 3H I headcanon that too, but canonically speaking, these intentions are 100% ambiguous. They never voice attraction to another student, or disgust at the thought of dating them because they speak in small, limited dialogue options and thought bubbles. We don’t have a real, canon indication that they would oppose dating a student before the time skip nor that they would actually do it.

What we do have are the canonical interactions that make people uncomfortable, however. Byleth can think of students in “that way” when the Gatekeeper describes a romantic getaway on the Goddess Tower. If we take them at face value, then their dialogue options clearly establish that they’re okay with flirting with students as young as fifteen, at the very least. They “die” before potentially starting to date any of them for real, but the beginnings of an uncomfortable romance are there and the game fully embraces this as okay .

This is all a result of the writing. Fates never condemned you for picking your sister over any of the other thirty (?) romanceable characters, just like Three Houses doesn’t condemn you for picking Lysithea over any older women in the teaching staff. It’s just another S support option, and it even gets some sweet extra content. She’s touched that you care for her, and you do everything in your power to take care of her frail health, and you guys get happily married. No one ever mentions that you were her high school teacher when she was fifteen and you met at said high school, and she was your favourite student— and this is, you know, something of an important detail in any relationship. Just like Fates, it’s sweet and shippable out of context, which just encourages normalization. How dare you say this is unhealthy? It’s tender! Look how much he loves her!

The thing is that 3H initially presents your students as your charges in school. You’re unambiguously in charge of them as both tactician and instructor, even if you treat each other in a familiar way. Even if most students technically outrank you as nobles, Garreg Mach as politically neutral ground implicitly puts you above them as their teacher. The younger ones are vulnerable teenagers, away from home in a boarding school. Most have some sort of underlying emotional problem that they come to you for. They come to you for advice, and sometimes just venting. You can give them gifts, and have tea every week with them if you so wish in an off-screen conversation. Tea also serves as the “skinship” of this game where you get to see the anime boy/girl of your dreams from up-close, which is a pretty creepy thing to do with a fifteen year old anime girl even out of universe, but I digress.

Looking at this chart in the essay I linked earlier gave me a little bit of a stroke, because the “Strategies” aspects are all things you do in 3H prior to the time-skip:

This is obviously accidental, but still concerning because we know these devs have a twisted idea of what romance is, and that culminated in what I sincerely hope is an unintended but still eerily accurate portrayal of grooming.

Emotional confidence, teatime and gifts, flirting, making a vow together at the Goddess Tower, sex jokes, are all things you do pre-timeskip, and some student’s personal arcs make this even worse. Marianne, Dimitri and Bernadetta have mental illnesses, and they heavily rely on you for support. Edelgard and Sylvain express attraction towards you. You meet Felix’s father and he puts his full trust in you. Ignatz, Bernadetta and Marianne have very low self-esteem. Characters like Ashe and Annette have major parental issues that they discuss with you. In short, you see them at their most vulnerable as kids, and then get together as adults.

About the only thing you don’t do pre-time skip in that list is “Isolate,” but some character arcs post time skip have this distinct vibe nonetheless. Many students leave their homes in the war phase explicitly because of you and no other reason. CF Ingrid in particular outright betrays Faerghus and everything she knew for you, as she says she doesn’t really believe in Edelgard’s war. Knowing you as a teacher can string her along in her Goddess Tower scene while she’s underage puts this in an awkward perspective.

This is what makes the five year time skip hold little weight. Everyone is an adult when the relationship is consummated, yes, but it starts pre-time skip.

Emotionally vulnerable teenagers having a strong relationship and frequent alone time with their older teacher, who is a confidant and someone that makes them feel special is already looking bad, but the absolute loyalty, idolisation and close relationship when they’re adults only makes it worse, even if it’s probably just a result of poorly thought out game design and player pandering gone wrong.

It’s not just player pandering, however. The devs just clearly think these relationships are okay. Other non-Byleth student/teacher romances deserve a mention, too—Manuela is forty something and thinks of her romantic potential with some 19 year-old:

Thankfully, this support ends at B, but others don’t. She has romantic endings with Lorenz, Ferdinand and Dorothea, who she even canonically met before Garreg Mach as a child and who idolises her as an opera star. The game doesn’t stop at the normalisation of grooming with Byleth, they’re just the most noticeable example, especially since it’s a power fantasy for the player who can romance all of them, not just a few.

The time skip had the opportunity to fix some of the creepy implications, but it didn’t

People like to look at the time-skip as a justification of romance. That 15 year old kid is 20 now, after all, and your students are adults, who have matured and grown outside of your influence.... Except your interactions with them remain virtually the same. They still call you Professor and hold you in some extremely high esteem as an authority figure.

Three Houses has an avatar worship problem like all newer Fire Emblem games and this definitely contributes to the uncomfortable implications in the narrative, because literally everyone respects you and adores you to an uncomfortable degree. Even as grown ass adults, the avatar worship just makes it seem like your students still idolize you like when they were kids awe struck by how cool you are.

They don’t show the change from “mentor” to “peer” satisfactorily, like they intended for the romance elements to work. Byleth’s name is customizable, making a first name basis difficult, but they easily could have changed your war phase title to something that would make it seem like your students’ view of you changed, like a military title such as Commander, or even just Eisner, your canonical last name. All students still call you “Professor,” in the war phase, though. Some students even call you Professor when you’re about to propose to them in the S support, like Lysithea. Leonie, one of the oldest students who is actually your age, has this to say about calling you by your name… you know, like a normal peer and friend would:

White Clouds is also a whole year while VW, AM, and SS take place during six to seven months, CF during five. You spend more time as their teacher and mentor than as “peers,” so Leonie’s position is pretty understandable despite being like, barely a year younger than you.

To rewind, this game lets you pick a “special” student pre-time skip, who you’re encouraged to build bonds with through tea, gifts and the Goddess Tower. You’re their favourite teacher, as said by many other characters. They grow up and join you in your war regardless of who they have to fight, some even just to be with you. They still affectionately call you Professor, and look up to you. You can then marry them. This is unironically seen as both acceptable and even romantic.

Many of these interactions like tea are gameplay elements and thus come off as the devs not thinking too hard about it. Except, again, we know they have no problem in writing outright pedophilia, but Fates in particular had heavy backlash over this, which explains the need to tone it down a little. Grooming was their “compromise” between not turning off the casual audience while still cheekily pandering to that crowd. Everyone is technically over eighteen in Three Houses, even if they act extremely similar to their teenage selves. The “technically 1000 year old” romances like Flayn and Sothis were also left intact.

This is an important distinction, because a bit of a popular “it’s not grooming” argument when dealing with the war phase is Byleth’s weird dragon powers slowing their aging. Unlike the kids, all adult non-students in Three Houses undergo no portrait changes during the time skip, including Byleth. The thing is that in Chapter 10, they receive dragon powers as part of some plot nonsense, so it has different implications than just anime hating everyone over 25. There’s implications in the game that this definitely affected their ability to age normally, such as the Flayn ending:

However, we don’t know how their aging was affected and to what extent. Three Houses’ lore didn’t specify much about the way dragons age. Rhea undergoes dragon madness, so we can thus tentatively assume Fódlan’s dragons are similar to Archanea and Valentia’s dragons, which would mean there’s a chance Byleth even aged normally for a few years before slowing down significantly like Nah from Awakening did. It’s entirely possible they’re biologically 25-26 like they’re meant to be, because they didn’t physically die. They were just asleep.

Even if they really did not age a day over 21/22, it still makes the pre-time skip hold weight, however. Byleth can flirt with them as teens prior to any fantastical excuse, and they’re still a mentor figure in the students’ eyes, which goes on to colour every interaction with you in the war phase. Post-time skip everyone is legal, but they still have that history with you, and the game makes no real effort to change that whatsoever. It still fulfills the student/teacher fantasy despite the many, many technicalities it tries to pull out of its ass.

Intsys is self aware and knows that this upsets people

To say these devs probably didn’t mean it that way is not entirely impossible, but they don’t exactly inspire confidence. They even “acknowledge” their flippant way of treating teacher/student relationships in a DLC quest during school phase:

Of course, this is a silly complaint because a teacher being friendly with students is a good thing! Students learn better in a positive environment! The problem here is that it’s obviously referencing and mocking the people upset that this becomes romantic later on. I think anyone would have been able to forgive the overly friendly nature of Byleth and the students’ relationships if no line had been crossed regarding romance. This is Fire Emblem after all, and it wouldn’t be Fire Emblem without supports and relationships values.

But also, Intsys is very good at jokingly acknowledging when they’re being creepy rather than striving to do better. It’s not the first time they’ve done this. A really bold faced example is when the Fire Emblem mobile game widely known for fanservice released a ten year old child (no magic or dragons, either, just a child) dressed as a bride and had her say: “This outfit is just for the [bride] festival, don’t get any weird ideas!” when they were the ones who made a child bride for fanservice purposes.

this one was pretty fucked up even by their standards. comment sums it up

The devs also once called Camilla from Fates a “cow” in an interview for having huge breasts and a little tiara that looks like horns. They designed her that way, but then mocked her for looking like an oversexualized caricature. Any way you look at it, they’re well aware they’re being off-putting and cheekily being like, tee hee, I sure made a dating sim set in a high school! Which ultimately leads to the final point:

Though canon definitely has its problems, it’s less about canon and more about the devs’ bad intentions and the fans’ general lack of empathy for CSA victims:

This is not to diminish canon’s impact at all, because it’s outright malicious to portray an unhealthy relationship as cute and harmless. In short, they just pull technicality after technicality out of their ass to make student/teacher okay somehow instead of just..... not having student/teacher at all. After Fates having fucking incest, 3H and teacher grooming seems outright tame and that definitely contributed to the wide acceptance in the fanbase, because it’s less outrageously pandery. I can’t believe I have to say this in 2020, but…... that’s still not good, lads.

I will also admit there’s some nuance here regarding some of the students, especially those 20+ year olds who aren’t easy to manipulate teenagers like Mercedes. We can sit here and argue all day about whether or not this game legitimately 100% can be considered grooming because of those 20+ students, and all of those in-universe technicalities since there’s no real life academic journal on grooming who will talk about the offender being a dragon, but the end of the matter is that the devs chose to portray their pseudo-dating sim franchise in a school, while your MC is a teacher and most of the students are teens. These relationships are also 100% normalised and okay in-game. They did it with incest and with teacher/student, both topics that are majorly upsetting to CSA victims, and that alone is worth calling out. They even mocked people who were upset about it with a little DLC quest, just to rub it in.

This whole post was a critique of 3H and Intsys, but it’s impossible to critique the game without critiquing the fan culture around it, because the devs definitely had a fanbase in mind. We know they take feedback, since they toned it down after complaints about Fates, but the reason why they didn’t just get rid of pandering aspects, is because they’re popular. There’s a huge demand for this, and that’s exactly why they keep doing it, and it’s the simple reason that online anime spaces full of adults have always placed a particular interest in teens and sexualising and shipping them. A Fire Emblem game set in a school with a calendar and a lot of romantic and social elements that started development in 2017 just screams Persona 5 inspired. Fans obviously noticed.

”edelgard is soooo thirsty” jokes are a lot less funny if you know going for the thirsty kid is a legit strategy

Now, I don’t know shit about Atlus, and after seeing all these memes regarding Persona 5 and the fans’ positive reaction to them, I have zero intentions to play it, but I’ve unfortunately played every single FE game and watched the transition to classic FE to 3DS FE to 3H. I have my criticisms about modern FE’s writing quality for sure, and while I obviously can’t say it used to be perfect because it was still a fairly mediocre (but fun) game about teenagers beating up dragons, it’s now become one of the single most unfriendly fanbases if you’ve gone through any kind of sexual trauma. Incest shipping, pedophilic shipping, and sexualizing teenagers was always there to some extent, but it’s blown up now that the devs have emboldened those fans by doing it in canon itself. It’s rampant, especially on “waifu” circles, and now grooming ships are mainstream and everywhere. Even LGBT friendly “safe spaces” are unbrowsable. F!Edeleth in particular is commonly seen as the holy grail of wlw representation. Linhardt is the most popular M/M option despite the other two being adults. Doromanuela was given a shout-out by Dorothea’s English voice actress.

Old FE games had background things like that all the time, (Roy/Cecilia is Literally gender swapped Petra/Byleth) but the keyword here is background. Not like... 80% of the ships involving the MC in game, which means you weren’t bombarded with this every day. Worse, the discussion about this topic has been non-existent. Reddit has not touched this at all despite the community there being well known for meticulous criticism, Twitter and Tumblr have seen its fair share of discourse, but it’s quickly dismissed. Just click here to watch people dismiss the concerns of every single grooming and CSA victim, or even call them stupid like we can’t recognize this shit in every single fandom. Of note are the fans who dismiss grooming concerns by saying all flirting occurs post time skip (which is false, as we just said) and the characters are only 3-6 years apart anyway……………….. and then gleefully consume/produce pre-time skip content:

miscellaneous tags on a pre-time skip linleth comic (20/21/22 and 16/17 if you’re not keeping count) not posting the comic itself cause i don’t want anon hate lol

While there’s an argument to be made for romance with anyone who was 20+ pre-time skip, there is NONE for the underage kids. None. And like, even if you somehow still want to argue that 3H itself isn’t grooming because of the time skip, a huge chunk of the fanworks objectively are, and this is a huge problem that needs to be called out and nobody does so whatsoever. That comic has 2500+ notes.

This isn’t even a call to tell people to throw out their copies and riot, just to be aware of this and try to make fan spaces a little more bearable for CSA victims. A lot of people call this ‘toxic cancel culture’ and whatnot, but I personally can’t defend a dev team who I KNOW has done heinous things in the past, and continue to support the pedophilic mentality in online anime fan spaces but like, in a cheeky subtle way. They easily could have made Byleth a student who tutors the others because of their experienced mercenary background with Jeralt, or just not let them romance the kids at all. They could have pleased both the dating sim and high school camps by letting you choose to be either a 21+ teacher or a 17 year old student with the appropriate romance options, too. They didn’t do any of this, and their questionable past begs me to ask why, and none of the answers I can come up with are very encouraging. They also even blatantly gave you extra content when romancing students.

I hope contextualizing the 3H grooming at least makes some people understand why it’s so upsetting to see it everywhere. It’s just the decent thing to do to tag your posts, and to not dismiss any of these things. It’s just the decent thing to do to listen to people who are sharing their experiences and respecting their boundaries if they simply do not want to interact with you if you decide to continue supporting Intsys.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Stan Claude von Riegan.

#t #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #grooming mention #csa ment

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dappersheep · 3 years

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Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (1/3)

So first things first, disclaimers! I do not claim nor pretend to know every nook and cranny, ins and outs of the history of FooFan's conception, existence and uncertain future. I do not own the game nor its characters, only the opinions and thoughts stated hereon out.

This was born to vent out my frustrations with how a game like this was abused poorly by its own developer and publisher instead of being nurtured to become its full potential that could have overshadowed and remained better than the likes of Tencent's Tales of Food --I could dream, but it honestly had the potential to be.

Out of respect for the main tag, I personally will not be tagging this post and the following two with the main tag. If you want to tag it yourself with it, that's your choice. Only followers of my blog will see this.

This analysis is divided into three parts: Funtoy, Elex, and the Community. It starts under the cut. Well let's get started.

Funtoy

Ah yes, the creator. The developer. You'd think that with their sudden rise to fame during their global launch, they'd have used the massive profits they earned within the first quarter of 2018 to improve certain things about the game and then trickled it down as quickly as possible towards Global, right? Yeah, I thought so too.

After playing the game since launch, I've seen and experienced way too many things that just hammer in the fact that this is one of the most unfair gacha I've played in years. Some reasons being the following:

(Note: These are experiences ONLY on Global's version, it may also apply to CN being the original server)

⦁ The game's gacha model is aimed towards maximum predation on its players. F2p are forced to either spend some money (and thus tempt them to keep spending after getting a taste of it), or risk not even getting a good ascension of the unit to be useful at all. Paying for the event packs also doesn't guarantee that you would be able to secure a spot in the ranks. In fact, if you can't comprehend how the battle mechanics work, you could even de-rank. Fun way to burn that 800$, huh? At least you have the skin from rebates.

⦁ A little less known thing and probably theoretical at worst, the long joked about spaghetti coding of the game along with an outdated spine technology for the sprites could very well be the reason why a 2D game like this experiences the shittiest lags. Also how easy it is to hack this game with the right know-how.

⦁ Speaking of bad gameplay mechanics, did you know you could spend over fifty Mirrors and not get that final enhancement from +9 to +10 simply because there's absolutely no tangible safety net before +10?

⦁ If you're F2P, this game is terrible in giving you resources to stockpile. Because Funtoy certainly doesn't have a lot of weekly/monthly or even friendly events wherein you can get resources without spending another kind of resource. The Hawthorne event's rewards are lackluster at best, Bingo is severely limited in what it gives, and Recall also doesn't give much for a big event that only happens (supposedly) every 6 months. Did I also mention that daily resource rewards also kinda suck compared to how much you burn in just one event?

⦁ Monthly subs are a scam. Yes, you heard that right. My point of comparison here is Arknights. A monthly in AK allows you to have enough to 10-pull after 30 days, on top of a bit of stamina to help you. In FooFan? You have two monthly subs that do different things and even then, you won't have enough to 10-pull by the end of 30 days, nor is the stamina you get enough to even stockpile and ease the pressure of your need to save for the Gates or that stamina event that suddenly popped up.

⦁ A conga line of 'Must procure this unit at a high ascension to do well in the following events!'. You missed the first Pizza event? Missed the first Turkey event? God forbid, you weren't able to 5* your Beer on his debut? Well sorry, that 5* Black Tea of yours isn't gonna do squat to give you good damage. No, your 2* B-52 also isn't going to do much of anything with his lackluster damage capabilities. If you want a chance to get those event URs again, you have to wait for their pool with laughably limited pulls... and a bloated price to even pull.

⦁ The events starting after the first iteration of Turkey event get even more paywalled. As far as I remember, by the time Minestrone rolled around, an F2P with ample crystal resources can only get 2* at best. 3* and above are paywalled.

⦁ The game has incompetent balancing. The devs themselves likely have little experience in gameplay design and balancing, especially for a game with a growing roster of characters . A prime example of them launching a character not knowing it would pretty much unbalance the game? Look no further than Beer. The guy had to have a couple of nerfs done to him because he was just too meta. You know what's sadder? Before the 'switch' to Brave meta, almost all meta units was built to benefit off the Beer meta.

⦁ Artifacts. Do I even have to explain how the introduction of such a game feature so early into the lifespan of this game essentially fucked over the balance even more? Not to mention, all the more reason you'd be crying with the Gates of Trials demanding so much out of your stamina and crystal resources. F2Ps are again, the ones that suffer in this part. What's their reason? Profit, of course.

⦁ The nerf of resto chests. This was the primary source for people who were saving up stamina for the Gates... until Funtoy decided they were being too generous to their playerbase and dropped the stamina probability rate to 1% or less.

⦁ Terrible UI layout and design. Come on, be honest now, you've lost several thousand of your hard earned crystals buying screws in the fishing shop because you didn't notice that shiny warning in small text and a green button with the crystal image slapped on it, didn't you?

⦁ Look at all these SRs! All of them! Wow, they even outnumber the Rs by at least 80! What's that? There's more URs now too compared to Rs and Ms combined? That can't be real. But seriously, you'd think Funtoy could make some of these SRs into Rs and add them to the perm pool/shard fusion so people aren't stuck pulling Macaron or Dorayaki every time. They could have also populated the Team Up rewards with SRs instead of Rs. But you know... that won't bring them profit. Haha... haha.... Oh and I haven't even told you about the SP class...!

⦁ Lore. Yes, I'm sure by now you're aware that the in-game lore is different from the ones in the non-SP Food Soul bios, in the SP Food Soul bios that sort of ties in with the New World story (that global will never be getting btw). At this point, Funtoy handwaves the confusion away by saying, 'they're all different timelines'. Yes yes, an easy and cliche move to explain how shitty the writing direction went after a while. I don't know what happened, all I know is that lore got weird(er) when they introduced SP Rice.

⦁ They. Keep. Adding. More. Characters! They fail to see that a lot of their earlier players have imprinted on the first few waves of Food Souls and they sadly also fail to properly give some of them more story expansion... or skins. At the moment, they're shelling out so many JP-centric Food Souls because... as I see it? They're pandering to the last bastion of whales they have.

⦁ Merchandise. And I mean a variety of merchandise that isn't using the same official art every time. Like they couldn't afford to commission a couple of artists one or two times to make unique merchandise that would sell. They started too late on that train, and they even made it too hard for anyone not in CN or JP to even procure what already exists. Not to mention, they keep using the same 'popular' set of characters for their merchandise and never really expanding out to making merch for other characters.

These are all the things I can list off at the top of my head why Funtoy as a developer sucks ass. They could sweeten their words all they want, it won't change the fact that they've certainly made way too many bad decisions and found out about it too late, and now they're desperate to keep Food Fantasy alive to keep their profits coming in to make whatever that cat girl game they have and that supposedly 'side-game' FF2 they announced.

There may have been problems out of their control that I or you do not see, but one thing is for sure, they were blinded by greed for the money they were raking in on all their servers at the start, and never actually bothered to invest in more manpower in the right places to improve the game, both gameplay-wise and worldbuilding wise. It's actually saddening that this game could have been so much more with several QoLs and a more fleshed out lore, perhaps even spacing out the number of new units they keep introducing while going back to giving their old units more attention.

That's it for Funtoy. We're moving onto Elex in the next part and boy is that also a trip.

#ravings of a madman #food fantasy but not tagged right

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tj-shmt · 3 years

Text

A Day of Curation

Unless its Wednesday, it should be around 11am right now when i get up. First things first, put in my headphones and go get some good music! Its Monday - time to listen to my Discover Weekly playlist, which Spotify usually tailors perfectly to my tastes.

1. 🎶 SPOTIFY 🎶

Fun fact - this weeks "Discover Weekly" suggs. Usually I get the best music from there. I don't really recall the last time any of my friends really showed a song I didn't already know or was adequately good. Tho, I have to give Amelie some credit here, she constanly hits me with great Spanish tunes. (Also to Jasi and Safae which hit me up with some dope music from time to time) I mostly get inspiration from (sad to say but its true) tik tok or by randomly shazaming the world. I also really hate to limit myslfe to music i understand. On the contrary I LOVE LOVE LOVE music arround the world. Trust me i hear Tibetian Throat Singing to Russian Electro and even Islandic and Nativ American Tribal Music. To give you an impression of how important music consumption is for me:

Last Year i spent a total of 210 441 minutes on spotify alone. That is about 9 Hours a day. The average person uses Spotify for about 18 000 minutes a year. (My friend took the freedom to calculate how much money Spotify "looses" by my consumption. i pay $30 a year an Spotify gives $0,004891 per stream to the creator. An average of 3 minutes per song (70.000 streams) means spotify pays $342.37 to the creators. Thats $312.37 of deficit LOL)

Apart form that i cant really give Spotify a certain schedule when i listen to it cuz i listen to it all the time. During gaming, during coding, laundry, gym, work, class, before sleep. ✨Always✨

2. 💬 WhatsApp 💬

There is nothing better than sleeping for an eternity while everyone is already awake for probably 4 or more hours, working! *laughs in privileged design student* Since everyone is already living its live while I still drool, I gotta get up to date in the morning. Before i even leave bed, i checke my messages there. Similar to Spotify, I use WhatsApp the whole day and can't really tell when I would not use it. Except, my phone is always on silent (casual zennial phone call phobia) meaning i wont notice anything while zoning out or gaming (which usualy is the same).

3. 👨‍🏫 TEAMS 👩‍🏫

Yeah Yeah i can already hear it. "You wake up 5 minutes before class withouth breakfast or anything..." - bla bla bla. Yeah that is the case! I would usuly go on teams and enter the classroom, while preparing a breakfast (if you can call it breakfast after 12) sit down at my desk and listen to class. Causally everything that is too theoretical with music and whatsapp. Other classes that are interesting I`ll put my full attention to it.

But i hate teams in gerneral. Not cuz its sh**, no, usualy people that do their clases there have a weird way of using it. Finding material or looking up homeworks is such a struggle sometimes. (Props to you Kevin here, I have never seen anybody using teams in such a clean and struktured way than you do. Even tho you dont neccesarily use it as it was meant to be. (which might be the turning point on why its great))

4. 📺 YouTube 📺

Yup YouTube is usually the place to go after (sometimes during (I NEVER SAID THAT!)) class.

Actually, YouTube is the place to go for me. Relaxation, Entertainment, knowledge - anything! After class I'd usually watch "Cut" or other channels that produce let's plays or entertainment of some sort.

But it's also THE place to go during coding. I rather listen to Lofi or (Slowed, Reverbed) Music that doesnt really distract me. ALSO, during coding watch A SH*TLOAD OF TUTORIALS, cuz I am proud selftaught Zennial. #BestOfBothWorlds

5. 👨‍🍳 CHEFKOCH 👨‍🍳

I love to try new things and I constantly stalk the web for new recipes. Lately a lot of Asian and Vegan stuff. Chefkoch is the app to go where i also write down my own recipes to have them with me all the time. Great thing here is, i share this account with all my family members (currently 13, including my mom, aunts, other relatives). Great way to share the secret family recipes at any time!

(Cant recommend the recipe in the img, tho!)

6.🏐 ADDIDAS TRAINING🏐

Unlike all my sporty friends that used to hit the gym before covid and not got lazy, I started to use Training Apps like Addidas Training with its free Workout plans. I use it regularly and am happy i finally found a way to stay sporty.

7. ⌨️ VS CODE ⌨️

Its either Visual Studio Code, where I would code on my current project, or gaming. As mentioned above, I would get most of the inspiration from tutorials or using dev tools on different platforms.

8. 🎤 DISCORD 🎮

I´ll use Discord as a general term for Gaming since I play a lot but many different games, tho, always use discord to communicate with my freinds while gaming.

A great place to share random BS with friends and talk about anything that comes to my mind. I spent most of the evenings on Discord with my friends. Always did, in fact. Maybe the reason why I don't really feel so affected by the pandemic. I am used to being separated from my friends since they live all over Germany or the world in general. I always enjoy Online Live Events WITH my friends.

For me the web as always been a "with" not an "alone", which is why I never understand why so may struggle with feeling "alone" on live events online. JUST GRAB A FRIEND AND DISCOVER IT ✨TOGETHER✨!

9. 📼 DISNEY+ / NETFLIX 📼

Since I use both the same amount there is not thos or that. I never Really let anybody recommend me anything, cuz ... trust me, I WON'T watch it. IDK why that is, but I need a specific mood for each show. And nobody but myself can provide that. Probably why most ove the algorithms (esp Netflix) do not have an effect on me. I'm not in the mood for your ****, sorry!

Never the less, i periodically Binge a Series and then feel empty after it ended. Then i need some time to face reality again.

Funny tho, I binged Starwars Rebels on Disney+ and after it ended i just decide to buy 4 books on amazon that expand the story to starwars (#nerd i know). I will spend the next few months reading and probably not watching anything on both Streaming services.

10. 🤤 TIKTOK 🌈

... YUP.... I grew up with vine ... but TikTok got me. And honestly I don't regret it. It's the perfect algorithm that constantly finds the best videos that feed my thirsty queer ass. I mean ...

LOOK AT THE IMG ABOVE. YES, give me more....!

Its prolly not good for my digital wellbeing or my mental health but do I care at the moment..? noooooo...

Just give me more of Starwars Parodies, Sleepwalkers, Best off's of streamers, Queer content (cuz its time this heteronormativity world is fed with it! and no i do not indentify as anyting, im just the + at the very far end!) and yeah, even some sexy content if the creator feels good about it.

AND DONT YOU GIVE ME THAT SIDE EYE OF JUDGEMENT HERE - WE ALL THIRST FROM TIME TO TIME!

TOODLES!

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danieyells · 3 years

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Yo Danie, I wonder if you've got any ideas on this; in TAS, transients either get summoned to Tokyo because the app reaches out and makes pacts on people's behalfs with willing familiars, or they get summoned by having, like, a wish of some kind and they end up stumbling through a portal to Tokyo to see that wish fulfilled, right? And then they either get unsummoned, or stick around for whatever reason?

Here's the thing; when they get unsummoned, do they go home? The Red Oni in chapter 1 seems pretty convinced that he's going to die unless you make a Summoning pact with him, but Salomon says later that Shiro's familiar whose connection you cut will just end up going home. Further to that, Macan says about Oniwaka when he's vanishing into light that he's going back to his home world, and then when his strength recovers he'll pop right back in.

The thing is though, that there's a remark early on that Stray Transients, who are Transients without a Summoning bond by the game's definition if I'm remembering right, can only maintain themselves for a while by sustaining themselves on the land's energy. Even further, the actual Housamo wiki says that they'll be unsummoned from the game if they don't find a way to sustain themselves, usually by getting into a pact. Guilds I believe are also noted to be one way around this. Does that mean that if you just wait outside of a Pact, you'll go home? Or would you pop back in again after a bit, essentially trapped in Tokyo?

ALSO ALSO, Bathym says that, though this only applies to "his hella demonic self", demons need tons of emotional energy directed at them to survive, and a pact is the most efficient way to get energy.

But we don't see Sitri in a Guild or a Pact (unless you Pact him, but I'm pretty sure that's non-canon), and Sitri also has a family. They're all demons one would presume, so why does he not seem to need anything like Bathym does? We can derive from this that Bathym was either speaking about himself, and only himself, lying to try and get the Protagonist to make a pact with him, or that Sitri has a Pact he isn't chatting to anybody about, right?

HOWEVER. In chapter 4, we see that the Aoyama guild provides supplies for the enormous number of Stray Transients who have nothing and no prospects, but that those strays are unlikely to be guild members. Further to that, she mentions that the ninjas and many other strays are like, literally treated as the dregs of society. So, how come they're still around? Surely the Stray Transient population should be either dwindling all the time, or in constant flux? But I'm pretty sure there's a notable overpopulation issue in canon because of the sheer number of Transients! Not to mention, if they're treated like dirt and killed and traded, you'd think they'd just...WANT to leave, right? So they could just wait until their connection ran out.

AND ALSO, it's noted in the backstory that Transients started pouring through the gates one day in history, and that this generation has never lived in a Tokyo without walls, but the previous generation therefore presumably did; that means like, it's been at least 2 decades, possibly 3. How long could those Transients have stuck around without a pact going by the lore?

Lastly, the Protagonist has the power to rend Transients connections to Tokyo, canonically. How then, do those Transients come back if they've had their connection severed? And shouldn't the Protagonist offer to go to the slums and ask if anybody would like to go back to their homeworld if that were the case? Or will everyone literally just rebound to Tokyo completely?

Further to that, when people fulfil their wish, do they go home? When they've played their Role out completely, is that the end of their tenure in Tokyo?

Basically, I think the whole system is a little underexplained and I've seen you post thoughts here on stuff, so I was wondering as to what you'd make of it all! Am I missing something?

. . .holy shit anon this is an essay innit lol not that i'm complaining, I just was not expecting it when I saw the notification after I woke up. For the record I saw this at. . .7am or so. It is now 11:55 when I'm finishing it. HYPERFOCUS GO BRRRRRRRRR. OKAY LET'S SEE IF I'VE GOT SOME THOUGHTS FOR YOU.

DISCLAIMER: I'VE BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR LITTLE OVER A MONTH AND I FEEL LIKE I HAVE FAR FROM ALL OF THE DETAILS. I haven't read three of the translated past events yet and I haven't read most of the untranslated content(including Chapter 11 although I'm super tempted you don't even know.) These are just my understandings of things, I suppose.

ALSO IDK HOW FAR YOU ARE IN THE STORY. . .I mean you mention them being sold so you're probably up to Chapter 10 at least since that's where we learn about Daikoku selling transients because it gets him off I guess, although they also could have mentioned it some other time and I just forgot lol BUT. YEAH PROBABLY GONNA MENTION SPOILERS.

TL;DR:

Red Oni: summoned to Tokyo without a pact. When rended from the land would disappear, possibly die. Likely this is because of whatever conditions are happening where they came from or having had already been dead when summoned. Possibly also just a false belief because they didn't know well what was going on to begin with. Possibly also just part of the game plan originally but retconned by the devs then never rewritten.

D-Evils: Shiro's Rule is Ressurection which causes an exception when clashing with Rending. The world of the Old Ones is gone, the D-Evils are familiars created by/living in Shiro's book. Entities, abilities, and artifacts from Old Ones are able to be used outside of the app/battle zones, so D-Evils can exist if Shiro just summons them. D-Evils don't go away when rended because they're part of Old Ones and Old Ones is gone--if they go away they return to Shiro's artifact where they came from. They also donct go away because rending them causes an Exception.

Oniwaka; Zabaniyya; Ophion: rended from EXCEPTIONS not from the world. Were likely sent back in order to resolve the exception after being rended and to recover the energy that sustained their physical forms in the first place, not because they had no means of being sustained in Tokyo. Returned due to pacts with MC, positions in Guild, unfulfilled pact, etc once their energy to maintain physical form returned.

Stray Transients: likely have outstanding pacts and thus do not disappear over time. However, some don't and those proper strays will likely return home after an amount of time, but we don't know how long. Alp has been in Tokyo for a few months but isn't disappearing despite arriving because he wanted to be loved/popular. So unattached transients stay around longer than a few months. They may also be attached to the school they were initially meant to go to to be monitored, or someone who works there. They may not want to go home due to poor conditions, being dead, lacking a home or people to return to, etc. Remember, even in real life people immigrate to places that treat them poorly--but that's because even that and the potential in those places is likely better to them than whatever they're running away from. If the transient arrived in distress it's because they wanted to be away from wherever they started out or because they desperately needed something. This new opportunity may be what they need--to find someone they lost, to find an answer, to simply start life over fresh. Even if they're being abused, looked down on, they may simply be happy to be alive. If they want to go home, they hopefully just have to wait--but you have to live if you wanna get home, don't you? Best to survive as well as you can.

Stray Transient Population: constantly increasing to sustain/grow the Game for the World Representatives. The overpopulation is deliberate. They do not care about the wellbeing of these people, they only want to create a stadium to fight in, and for that they need more transients and app users than humans not using the app in Tokyo.

Sitri: Aside from forming a pact with him, Sitri's Sacred Artifact is his wings/are his feathers, which cause people to fall in love with someone who touched them after the feathers that had been touched are attached to a second party. Sitri feeds off of the love directed to him. This is troublesome for him more often than not, but I'm pretty sure that's how he gets the emotions he needs to eat if not via pact.

Being around from the start?: The gates appeared in 1999--it's been at least 20 years, assuming the game takes place anywhere near the present year. Off the top of my head we don't know if any stray transients have stuck around for extended periods. How long someone's been in Tokyo rarely comes up. We know Yule has been in Tokyo for a few years because he went to middle(elementary? Idr) school with Ryota. Sitri is similar with Kengo. As such, given Sitri and Yule aren't in guilds as far as we're aware, assuming being attached to a school doesn't make one connected to Tokyo, we can assume they're stray transients. This means that they'd been here for years, as strays. Given we know stray transients disappear eventually, it's safe to assume that there have been stray transients who disappeared and went home. Assuming it isn't different per individual, stray transients can stay in Tokyo for several months to several years, but to my awareness there's no set number.

Going Home: in order to go home a transient who's been summoned must fulfil their summoner/pacted humancs desire. Surtr, Azathoth, and Babalon all disappear after fulfilling Arc's desire for them to be their family, leaving behind their sacred artifacts which contain their memories until they disappeared. So, yes, fulfilling the desire entrusted to a transient/playing out their role will cause them to fulfil the conditions of their pact, causing them to disappear. However, we don't know what happens when they do. Thus far, those three haven't come back despite the reset occurring. Arc was able to summon their artifacts but otherwise could not reach them. Their artifacts were taken by Breke who was able to channel the memories within and allow Arc to communicate with Azathoth's memories.

SLIGHTLY MORE FULL VERSION WITH A COUPLE SCREENSHOTS

(read the tl;dr anyway because I probably remembered things while Inwas writing it that I didn't remember to put in the 'full' version lol I WROTE MOST OF THE LONG ONE, WROTE OUT THE TL;DR, THEN FINISHED THE LONG ONE SO. PROBABLY WANNA READ BOTH.)

Transients arrive in Tokyo either by being summoned, by being summoned ACCIDENTALLY(someone wishes to have friends/meet someone new, etc), by being pulled in by the Rainbow Of Transient Light randomly(?) sucking them up when they're in distress/have a wish to fulfil, or some combination of those.

In Macan's character quest, MC and Macan learn that the one who technically summoned Macan was MC. The same thing happens in I think Xolotl's. They end up going to the collided past--or a collided memory?--and when past!Macan is in distress over being alone, MC approaches him and says they're there for him, however past!Macan can only hear them, not see them. He calms down and asks if they're searching for him and says he's going to find them--which causes him to disappear and be summoned to Tokyo in search of this person who wanted to be by his side. Macan realizes that's exactly what happened to him--he heard a voice saying that they were with him and, in his desire to no longer be alone, the transient light came along and took him.

(it's written as 'Magan' in Japanese hence why it's written that way here--this was likely translated before his English name was given.) (Such a request, perhaps, means that he's with MC until he's dismissed by them specifically.)

Xolotl was running from being sacrificed to Tezcatlipoca and MC and future!Xolotl protected him. Seeing himself be weak and seeing himself be strong enough to try and protect MC and seeing MC who refused to leave him and hearing what they had to say, he desired the strength to live with the people he loves and for there to not be sacrifices again. He may not have gone to Tokyo if he hadn't realized that desire through meeting himself and MC. In fact, he may not have survived at all(though maybe Quetzalcoatl would've protected him if not collided MC and present!Xolotl.)

SO. If you recall correctly, MC is implied to be a transient as well. There's also the possibility that they're not, and simply are some poor sob the Game shoved 23+ memories in at once, broke the memories of the host in the proccess, and thus we have MC coming to in a park confused about everything but their own name(of course if that were the case surely someone in Tokyo would recognize them beyond their being the trophy/exile from their home world, so it's not likely.) Lil Salomon says that as a summoned transient they can only go home if they find and fulfil the wishes of their summoner. However they neither know who or where their summoner is.

Transients can appear simply due to someone's desire for companionship. But they don't necessarily appear atop that person, hence not knowing their summoner. They just hear a voice, may not even hear exactly what's being said or asked for, and the light picks them up and drops them off with no further info or ceremony. So if someone is pulled into Tokyo this way they have a summoner even if they don't know it--even if the summoner themself doesn't know. So they won't just disappear over time unless that person unwills what willed them there or they die or something. Plus we don't know how long stray transients stick around if they have no pact/summoner--we just know that they disappear eventually. It's more than a few months, because Alp showed up a few months ago and hasn't disappeared yet.

Several characters are attached to guilds which may keep them from being Strays. However some, to our awareness, have neither summoner/master nor guild. At most they may be attached to schools. Sitri, as you mentioned, is one of them, as is Yule--whom Shiro refers to as a stray transient he sees every year without being corrected(although the situation wasn't exactly a good time to clarify that lol.)

Both of them have been in Tokyo for years without disappearing--and the app is a kind of but not super recent creation, so guilds likely didn't sustain them this whole time. Neither have disappeared. Of course someone may have summoned them or they may be part of guilds without it being stated or perhaps being in a school has the same effect as being in a guild. But we don't know that for sure, either.

(Japanese middle school is from 12-15 years old. Kengo's a second year High School student now, so 16-17 years old. Sitri was a first year while Kengo was a third year, so there's two grades between them. Sitri's been in Tokyo at least 2 years. I believe he mentions seeing Lucifuge in a magazine in Ghenna so he hasn't been here his whole life either. So a few years, but not 15.)

Transients that disappear don't have pacts but transients that come back probably do/have formed pacts/attachments to the world. Remember, Oniwaka, Zabaniyya, and Ophion say to call on them if you need them. They're attached to the player now, perhaps having formed a pact incidentally, assuming the situation that brought them there in the first place isn't still in effect(or they're not still bound by, say, their guild.)

Also, much like in real life, sometimes whatever is home is worse than the horrific things you deal with wherever you immigrate to. Or perhaps you've formed attachments somewhere you've arrived and are willing to endure suffering for them. It's rarely as simple as "we're suffering, we wanna go back to where we came from." Especially since transients likely arrived due to distress or wanting to be anywhere else but home. Some of their worlds don't exist anymore(Old Ones) or are collapsing(Yggdrasil; El Dorado.) Some people have no one and nothing back home and this is a new start for them, even if the start is bad. Also they could be waiting until they go home automatically, but what're you gonna do while you wait? Probably live your life as best you can. If you're gojna be stuck somewherefor a few months you may as well make yourself at home.

So why doesn't MC go around rending people themself?

Well, for starters, they're made to be a high school student most of the day. Where would they find the time lol. Second they're a bit busy trying to save the world and all. . .and if some teenager wandered up to you and said they could get you home if you had an app battle with them, would you really believe that when you've been told your best bet is to either find your summoner or wait out your incidental connection to the world? Sounds like a kid trying to stir up trouble, and not all transients have the app anyway. I mean really would you expect the local homeless population to have smartphones? Probably not.

Furthermore. Spoiler alert

This system of the game, the gates, the transients, it's no accident. It's intentional. Tokyo is the setting for this inter-world competition to prove which world is strongest or something to that effect--and the winner gets MC, the host of the exiles and perhaps some kind of powerful system. Of course what they do with MC is up to them. The Warmongers want to keep the game going so they can fight the powerful MV over and over again forever. We don't know what the Invaders want yet afaik but based on the name I'd assume they want to use MC as a super soldier to conquer other worlds. And the Rule Makers want to use MC to support one of their own worlds as its System. /smacks MC on the back) this baby can hold SO MANY rules and roles! Hold up a whole damn world apparently!!

So think of it this way. . .they could go around rending everyone until the transient light returns them home or to the deaths they desire. . .but would the World Representatives really allow that? They'd just keep bringing in transients. They need to fill Tokyo with them--until transients and app users outnumber the humans naturally belonging to Tokyo--so they can have their little contest.

MC alone would never be able to pull off sending everyone home as long as the Game is running. The worlds would not allow their contest to be ruined.

As for who goes where and does what when unsummoned. The Red Oni hadn't been there long. And perhaps wasn't summoned in the first place, nor had anyone likely explained much to them for that arrival. Also if you felt yourself disappearing, felt your connection to this world just torn off and uprooted and fading away, even if you knew better you'd probably think you're dying. That'd be scary. You'd want to avoid it.

Of course it's also possible the oni was dead or dying to begin with and their connection being severed would send them back to death--like Shino, who'd died long ago in the Land of Wa and when he died in Tokyo he went back to being dead.

The D-Evils don't have anywhere to go back to besides Shiro's book. The world of the Old Ones is gone. As such "home" for them is back with Shiro--and remember, their rules clash anyway. Rending and Ressurection don't mix. MC couldn't rend the D-Evils from Shiro properly because it causes an Exception. At best rending them will send them back to the book until Shiro summons them again. Plus, entities from Old Ones can use their powers without the use of the app--including those with Old Ones artifacts. Shiro can summon the D-Evils at any time, even outside of an app battle--so to send them 'home' doesn't really send them anywhere but back to Shiro since they both have no home to return to and were summoned to exist in Tokyo.

Demons needing to recieve emotions seems to be more of a feeding thing than a transient connection one afair. Like Alp eating dreams--he'll die if he doesn't. It's like "I need to external feelings or I'll starve" not "I need external feelings or I go back to Ghenna." Sitri likely survived thanks to his feathers--his sacred artifact which cause people they attach to to fall in love with whoever touched them previously--causing a constant stream of love towards him as he needs it. As such he doesn't need to have a pact to live, he only needs to make people fall for him to absorb that feeling and then take his feathers back to stop eating.

The canon-ness of MC making pacts with everyone is perhaps debateable. However events, character quests, special quests, etc have characters refer to Mc as Master or Summoner. And the story can sometimes reference events and such(see: meeting characters in events before they're part of the main story, meeting them in the main story, and being able to go "didn't I meet you in [season/holiday]?" And they go "yeah, we did! It's nice to see you again!" So technically events and the like are as canon as you make them. Also having a pact doesn't mean that person can't be your enemy or can't hurt you or is fully at your command, which means that it doesn't necessarily not make sense that characters can be in pacts with/summoned by the player while still being against them. MC likely has the ability to form pacts easily/unconsciously.

This is likely(and this part is speculation!) because of MC's role as the Wanderer--as the host of the Exiles of the many worlds, they're a system in and of themself(or they'e able to be one.) As such attachments to them are like individuals having 'faith' in them, the way Systems sustain worlds. Especially those who had some relationship with or attachment to an Exile they host. This may also cause a pseudo pact with people they meet and get attached to(and are attached to them in turn, not necessarily in a positive way)--like people believing in a faith. The attachment to them, love for them, hate of them, fear of them, is a sort of belief that causes them to be able to stay in Tokyo longer because they are now unwittingly part of MC's system. After all MC is a transient and transients, as far as I recall/understand, don't summon other transients to Tokyo, they only summon artifacts because bringing a whole person and their memories requires a strong means to bind them. Transients' connections are already dependent on someone/something else--which is already taxing as a pregnancy--and that'd be hard for them unless they were born into Tokyo.

In cases like Oniwaka and Zabaniyya and Ophion, they likely needed to disappear temporarily in order to resolve the Exception on top of regaining energy to sustain physical forms in another world. Think of it like closing a program on your computer. If the program clashed with another and an exception occurs you close the one of lesser importance. You can then maybe open it again once things have cooled down with your proccesser and it can handle them at the same time--thus, they come back to Tokyo even after being dismissed by fixing the exception.

So they pop back in because they're still bound to Tokyo. MC only rended them from the exception, not from the world itself. But transients who truly have no connection will go back and stay until summoned again. . . .

(Now that I think about it when someone fulfils the reason they were summoned to Tokyo they disappear and seem to disappear for good. We don't know if they die or what. They've been eliminated from the game. This happens with Surtr, Babalon, and Azathoth. After they successfully, properly became like Arc's family and that desire was considered fulfilled the pact was complete and they disappeared, leaving behind their artifacts.

Red Oni may have been summoned to be a tutorial for the player. But also a tutorial for the player character. Red Oni thus would go away completely after fulfilling that desire of whoever summoned them, thus giving them their fear they'd die because they'd served their purpose.

I just happened to remember/consider that lol ANYWAY.)

Basically it's a bit underexplained I agree.

But that's because you, as the player, as the MC, aren't supposed to know everything that's going on. You're supposed to learn as you go while also being denied information by the Powers That Be. You don't have your memories, you don't know what's going on here until you see/experience/hear about it. It's part of the immersive understanding/storytelling proccess. The characters don't tell you how things work because they only barely understand it themselves--and then when they learn 'this isn't just a game, this isn't just coincidence, there's something greater happening here' everything they know gets thrown into question. The people who do understand it aren't going to tell you much because they don't want you to ruin their game. You're just the final boss and the trophy to be won--and possibly the system upon which the game resides, resetting every time you die so you can struggle to be won someday.

You "can't win."

So you don't need to know how it works.

That doesn't stop you or anyone else from trying to find out, though, nor does it stop you from trying to change it.

. . .I hope that helped a bit! 8'D I don't think you missed much, really. You're right in that it's underexplained but That's Storytelling, Baby!

#danie yells answers #danie yells at tokyo afterschool summoners #danie yells with anons #long post #tokyo afterschool summoners #as someone who learned that they like telling reader-focused stories #the storytelling method of 'show don't tell' tyat's being used here #where you don't know anything abd you only learn as it happens to you #i enjoy it a lot is what i wanna say lol it's like #we can all speculate together because it's less 'you haven't read all the meta!' and more 'we don't know yet #ofc i'm not the expert and icm not as informed as people whocve been here longer so #if i'm wrong anywhere or leaving things out or other people have input i'm super open to hearing it and i'm sure anon is too!

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

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Hi :) I... really wanna read a fanfic or two but I can't find one I vibe with xD So... do you know one that's not too long (around 100k words maybe), has hurt and comfort, smut (am I allowed to ask about that?? Ahhhh) and a happy ending? Top!lock would be a bonus but it's not necessary. And if it's a nice AU (like... any kind but no crossovers pls), it would be perfect! :D By the way, I found your blog only a few hours ago and I already feel really comfy and Idk, kinda at home here ^-^

Hi Nonny!!!

Welcome to my corner of the Tumblrsphere!!! I’m so happy you’ve found me, LOL, because I love all my followers and friends! <3

First of all, I think it’s super cute that “not too long” to you is “around 100K” LOL LOL LOL!!! <3 That said, I’d argue all my fic recs are fabulous, LOL. But again, I’m stupidly proud of the wonderful lists I’ve accumulated, because it satisfies my organization kink LOL. And yes, you’re ALWAYS allowed to ask for smut here LOL.

ANYWAY, so I’m gonna use this ask as an excuse to post up a long-overdue part two to my 50 to 100K fic list! But first, here’s some past lists for the genres you’re looking for:

FIC MASTER PAGES: PG1 || PG 2 || PG 3

Toplock (Mar 2020)

Omegaverse

Please Check PG 3 for all my AU fic lists. There’s a lot :)

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 1: Under 5K Words

Hurt / Comfort Pt. 2: 5K to 10K Words

Fandom Favourites / Popular Fics

I hope those will get you started! So now, here’s the main event!! Hope you enjoy them!

50 - 100 K WORDS Pt. 2 (Novel Length)

See also:

Fics Under 2000 w.

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 2

Fics Under 2000 w. Pt. 3

E-Rated Johnlock for Newcomers Pt 1 (Short Fics under 20K)

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Long S3/Post-S3 Fics (20K+ w.) [Apr 2020]

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Smut-Free Fics Over 50K (Aug 2019)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

Never Change a Running System by Lorelei_Lee (E, 54,246 w. || Pre-TRF, Romance, Humour, Drama, Sex Toys, Anal, Rimming, Masturbation, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Public Sex, First Kiss / Time, Virgin Sherlock / Loss of Virginity, Accidental Voyeurism, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Experiments, Naive Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Straight With an Exception John, Hand Jobs) – Sherlock discovers his sexuality – with far-reaching consequences for John.

A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because...new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride... prepare for blast off. Part 1 of the SpaceBois go to Space series

The Thing Is by TSylvestris (E, 56,743 w. || Case Fic, Dev. Rel., Anal/Oral, Blow Jobs, Meddling Mycroft, Drama, Romance, Humour, Casual Encounters, Pining Idiots, Possessive Sherlock, Orgasm Delay, Rough / Alley Sex, Public Sex, John Whump, Drugged John, Emotional Love Making, Awkward Relationship, Marriage of Convenience, Switchlock) – The problem with living with Sherlock, John thought, was that you never, never, ever knew the significance of anything. Like your flatmate's nose buried in your hair. Whilst you're in bed. Part 1 of Nitroglycerine

One Little Change by jadztone (E, 58,312 w. || ASiB Divergence, Fake Relationship, Bed Sharing, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss / Time, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bi John / Gay Demisexual Sherlock, Switchlock, Alternating POV, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Case Fic, Angst with Happy Ending, Emotional Love Making, Butt Plugs, Cuddles) – Our story begins right after John and Sherlock's first meeting with Irene Adler in September. It splits off into an AU that imagines them taking a case where they act as bait to hook a killer targeting closeted gays in secret relationships. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, many things happen that have our boys wondering if maybe they have a chance with each other. Then Irene fakes her death on Christmas Eve, and things get a lot more complicated - especially since they still have a killer to catch.

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w. || Notting Hilll AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant -- but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

The Burning by SrebrnaFH (M, 60,658 w. || Reverse Reichenbach, Suicide, Depression, Hurt Sherlock / John, Separation, BAMF John, Good Big Brother Mycroft, Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Fake Character Death, Rescue Mission, Reconciliation / Reunion, Hospitalization, Marriage Proposal, Illnesses, Physical Therapy, Happily Ever After) – Something went very, very wrong. John had seemed, if not happy, then reasonably content with his life. Sherlock had never predicted something like THIS might have happened. Not in his worst nightmares. He was the lousiest friend ever, apparently. At least Mycroft found him something to occupy his mind with, so that he didn't have to go back to 221B and stare at the walls and the chair, where John Watson would never sit again.

This Thing All Things Devours by cypress_tree (E, 63,844 w., 15 Ch. || In Time AU || Science Fiction, Dystopian Universe, First Meetings, Action / Adventure, Romance) �� In 2169, time is money—literally. Humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, when the numbers on their arm start counting down from one year. When that time is up, they die. The only way to get more time is to earn it, borrow it, or steal it.John Watson lives day-to-day in the crowded slums of Zone 13. He never imagined living any differently—until he meets the practically-immortal Sherlock, and helps him on a case to track a local time-thief...

The Bells of King's College by SilentAuror (E, 64,019 w., 5 Ch. || Post-S4, Missed Opportunities, Angst with Happy Ending, Fake Relationship, Case Fic, John POV, Jealous John, John in Denial, Travelling / Holidays, Virgin Sherlock, Wedding Proposals) – It's only been two weeks since Eurus Holmes disrupted their lives when Mycroft sends John and Sherlock to Cambridge to pose as an engaged couple at a wedding show in the hopes of solving six unsolved deaths...

Hell Sent, Heaven Bound by ConsultingHound (M, 64,381 w, 16 Ch. || Angels / Demons AU || Fallen Angel Sherlock / Angel Cop John, Alternate First Meeting, Slow Burn, Case Fic, John & Lestrade are Friends Before Sherlock, BAMF John, Mind Palace John, Friends to Lovers, John in Denial, Sherlock Picks Out John’s Clothing, Clubbing / Dancing, Mildly Jealous John, Awkwardness, Kidnapping, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Sacrifice, Worried / Anxious Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Immortal to Mortal) – Ex-War healer and current angelic guard John Watson is not having the best day. He overslept, he’s underpaid, and now there’s someone tagging the Council’s building walls. However things may be about to get interesting: there’s an unusual stranger hanging around (the definition of tall, dark, and handsome), a literal underground cult is brewing, and rumblings are coming from hell. Can he keep his neighbourhood safe, how and why is he being connected to all this, and who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?

White Knight by DiscordantWords (M, 69,840 w., 13 Ch. || S4 Compliant/Post S4, Marriage For a Case, Jealous John, Pining John, Janine / Sherlock Fake Relationship, Serial Killers, Case Fic, Undercover as a Couple, Weddings, John is a Mess, Misunderstandings, Wedding Planning, Jealousy, Drunkenness, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience. Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

The Monument of Memory by J_Baillier (M, 79,663 w., 14 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It Fic / S4 is Canon, Angst, Family Drama, Guilt, Case Fic, John Loves Sherlock, Complicated Feelings, Mentalism / Hypnosis, Murder, Grieving John, Sherlock is a Bit Not Good, Team Work, Trust Issues, BAMF John, Psychological Trauma, Protective John, Autistic-Spectrum Sherlock, Parentlock, John POV) – A genius traumatised by a past he's only beginning to recall. The psychopath sister that time forgot. A missing woman and a mentalist who may or may not be a murderer. And, in the middle of it all, stands John Watson.

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater / Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU || BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

31_Days_of_Porn_Challenge_2017 Series by distantstarlight (E, 96,540 w. across 31 stories || Prompt Ficlets, Assorted Kinks, PWP) – A collection in response to the 31 Days of Porn Challenge issued by AtlinMerrik! Thanks for doing that because this has been buttload of fun (that joke never gets old). All stories will be brief stand-alone one-shots.

The Baker Street Nativity by SwissMiss (E, 99,662 w., 23 Ch. || Nativity! AU || Teacher Sherlock / TA John, Pining, Sherlock POV, UST, Angst, Christmas, Music/Song Fic, Anal / BJ’s, First Kiss / Time) – Fusion between Sherlock (BBC) and Nativity! (2009 movie starring Martin Freeman). Sherlock is a primary school teacher and John is assigned to be his classroom assistant. Together, they are charged with putting on the school's Nativity play. What could possibly go wrong? Part 1 of The Baker Street Nativity Verse

Given In Evidence by verityburns (M, 97,884 w., 19 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Angst, Drama, Case Fic, Romance, BAMF!John, Submissive Sherlock, First Kiss, Humour) – Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #long fics #50 to 100k #Anonymous #fic rec wednesday #e-rated fics

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phoenotopia · 4 years

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2020 July Update

Things have gone slowly... again.

The good news is that the game is now submitted to the console "authority" and it's entirely off my hands. Once it gets through the console "checking" process, it can get a release date and we can sprint towards release. Until then, it'd be at least a month's wait or more until I hear anything. Understandably, their checking process is impacted by Corona, so wait times are increased.

On my end, I was also slow to submit the game. I submitted it late late June, since I ended up spending 7 weeks fixing bugs (and not 2-3 weeks like I estimated in the last blog post). There were just SO many bugs - now squished, thankfully. Since this is a blog post, I'll talk about what kind of bugs I've been fixing.

The other thing that slowed down the submission process was simply due to unfamiliarity with how these submissions proceed. There were pages and pages of stuff to read, guidelines to follow, and legalese to wade through. It really made me wish I had a publisher to guide me through the process. But I was able to clear it with a couple days work. I had an impression that the submission process went like A->B->C->D, with no room for concurrency. Turns out I could have done steps B & C at the same time and sped things up by 2 weeks... So that's that. I'm taking that as a lesson for next time.

The Console Revealed

What is this console that I talk about so stealthily? So that this blog update isn't completely unexciting, I'll reveal which console I've been working on until now. Drumroll please!

It's Switch!

We actually got the Switch dev kit in late 2017. From my understanding, around this time in the USA, the Switch kit was quite hard to get for indies as it was just starting out and high in demand. So I was surprised that my application got approved. I didn't know it then, but the game would still need a few more years of development...

Tweaking performance and fixing bugs

Here you can see my "expert" playtest setup. Since the Switch is more powerful while docked, I needed to playtest it in handheld mode, so I could catch and profile any problem areas where the framerate was unsteady. The most common thing that caused framerate drops were areas that went overboard with lighting. For these areas, I'd tweak or swap out the lights with alternatives that looked similar while also being less computationally intensive. Maintaining 60 FPS is a must!

An old camera (Nikon D3100) trained at the screen recorded my playthrough and would let me rewind to any moment a bug occurred. It could only record in 10 minute chunks, so I'd have to repeatedly repress the record button. On the plus side, because it's so old the movie file sizes were small and convenient.

The number one bug that I tracked and fixed in the past two months was what I dub the "Gear Ring De-equip" bug. The Gear Ring functions as customizable shortcut keys for the player to map items and tools (see an old video demonstration HERE). Through regular use of the inventory, somehow the equipped items on the Gear Ring would be de-equipped. It was an elusive bug since the de-equip event would happen very quietly and you would only suspect something had gone wrong much later. By then, the trail had gone cold and you weren't sure if a de-equip had actually occurred or if the player had simply de-equipped the item themselves. Two other playtesters noted that something left the Gear Ring in their playthrough, but I dismissed them. "Are you sure you didn't just de-equip it yourself?" It was a bug that bred mistrust and discord. I didn't truly believe it until it happened to me...

Luckily, with the camera setup, I was finally able to track it. In the literal 67th video, I caught a live instance of the bug occurring. After which, it was all too easy to recreate the exact same inventory and gear ring setup and replicate it.

(With this exact item layout, combine the 2nd item with the 14th item... and viola! Gear Ring de-equip!)

After fixing this bug, I then proceeded to fix it 5 more times. Every time I fixed it, it would later reappear through a different mechanism.

Why do bugs like this happen? Underneath, there are two lists of items. Tools on the right and items on the left. Items can occur multiple times because they're consumable. Both lists start counting their indexes with the value 0. However, both items and tools co-exist on the gear ring. So to uniquely identify an entry you need both the item ID and the data index. Failure to check both data types resulted in bugs like the Gear Ring de-equip. Now throw in a bunch of item operations that can confuse the system. You can split items, combine items, swap items, or discard items. The more freedom you allow, the more ways there are for the system to trip up.

If you didn't get all that, that's alright. It was needlessly complicated. Imagine doing more and better and with less code and less bugs! Such a thing is possible if you start with the right design. I'm definitely taking notes here on how to design inventory systems for next time. In the meanwhile, I'm very confident I've squished all inventory related bugs.

Other bugs squashed and features implemented in the past 2 months include the end game arts not unlocking properly, collection percentages climbing beyond 100, stray doors floating in the sky, low HP sfx blaring when loading different files, balance tweaks on bosses, a max HP display when the menu is open - too many to count really! It was only after I fixed them all that I was confident enough to move forward with submitting the game. I apologize for the delay this will cause!

PC version back in progress

You may recall in the March 2020 update I talk about how in pursuing the Switch version, I unwittingly ruined the PC version. Well, since the game is "done" now and I'm waiting for it to go through the checking process, I've started working to reclaim the PC version.

And there is some good news to report. The PC version can compile again! Of course, it will need to have some work done, since it was late 2017 when I last had a functioning PC build.

The opening menu is broken, the underlying save file system needs to be updated, and the controls... oh Lord, the controls. Controls were probably the #1 factor in pushing me to pursue a console version first. There are just so many controller options. Even just the usual suspects are numerous: Xbox, Nintendo, Sony, Logitech, Hori, 8Bitdo, Steam...

One of the number one complaints received regarding the flash game (which was keyboard primarily) was that I didn't allow controller rebinding to start. It was then that I learned of the vast array of different keyboard types.

(Ever heard of an Azerty keyboard?)

I shan't make the same mistake twice! One of the things I'll definitely tackle is the Right/Left face button feud when it comes to which should one should be 'confirm' and which one is 'cancel'. I want to allow the player to choose which is their "YES" and "NO" preference and allow that to overlap other actions like Attack or Jump.

Even after control bindings are taken care of, some things just won't translate well. The right control stick is currently used to access the gear ring and for fishing. Keyboards have no right stick. Aiming the crossbow with a full 360 degrees of range is done with the left control stick - if keyboard only, would the crossbow simply be locked to the 8 cardinal directions? What about those tutorial prompts with button graphics (e.g. "Press 'B' to Jump"). If using the playstation controller, it'd need to be the CROSS symbol. How many button graphics are we gonna load into the text module? What if the player, mid-playthrough, decides to swap out controllers? Indeed, there are many issues to tackle where controls are concerned...

Perhaps I'm overthinking it because even some AAA games get this wrong (Dark Souls has 'B' as 'Yes' on Switch, and it's not remappable, which I find quite annoying). I've seen games on consoles where the controls wouldn't mention the console's controller at all but instead mention a mouse and keyboard. Or, if you remapped the controls, the tutorial prompts still showed the old control bindings, making for a confusing experience. I definitely want to do the controls justice, so this will take some time.

Phoenotopia DISCORD Channels

Ryan and Firana have been running a Phoenotopia discord since late 2017, which I promoted on this blog once. It's been a couple years and it turns out that the old discord link I promoted expired. It's long overdue, but their channel could use another shoutout. Here's their channel : https://discord.gg/cnjrYST

Also, Khalid recently reached out to me about creating a Phoenotopia discord as well. I see no reason why we can't have 2 or more discords, so he has created that one with my blessing as well. You can find his discord here : https://discord.gg/cfnsCwy

I personally don't use Discords, since I'm very busy and there's too much new tech to keep up with. I hear there's a Tik Tok now? Should I create a Tik Tok for Phoenotopia? Hmmm...

Anyway, if you'd like to chat with other people who are similarly enthused for Phoenotopia, do check them out!

Fan Arts

We have five new fanart submissions this time around from regulars and new alike.

Cody G. returns with this pair of sketches of Gail. One seeks to answer the question, "how is Gail so strong?" Cody's answer is that under her sleeves she's actually really buff! This might be the most ripped rendition of Gail yet. Also, in the right drawing, the letter 'E' kinda melds with her bat, making it look like a keyblade!

What if Gale was a Shrek character? A new artist, Samu Kajin, from tumblr answers that question with a rendition of Gail sporting ogre style antennae. Samu Kajin says she can be called "Gaek" or "Shrale". I like the poncho!

Shafiyahh returns with a pretty portrait of Gail. Unlike their previous digital pieces, this one was made with color pencils! I like how her hair blends pink and purple colors together, and this pattern is also present in the eyes. Reminds me of a certain character. And the eyes are so sparkly despite using color pencils! Major props!

Negativus Core also returns with this relevant image of Gail, masked and running, presumably from Corona. It gave me quite a chuckle! I like the angle and tilt of this run pose because you can see the sole of her foot - that's how you know she's at full sprint! A skillful blur localized to her left foot show's just the right amount of motion. Gotta love the robot's expression too!

A rare 3D art has emerged. Dany Q crafted this adorable figure of Gail that is as cute as a button! I like how well it translates the pixel character over to 3D, capturing the 3 stitches on her shirt and even catching her stray strand of hair. It kinda reminds me of a Wallace and Gromit character, so I can picture it moving and animating in that unique claymation style.

Next Time

I'm ~80% confident we can clear the Switch console checking process and drop the trailer with a release date before the next blog post. But once again, if things go slowly, you'll hear from us in 2 months...

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goldenhydreigon47 · 3 years

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Y'know, I'm bored. May as well talk about the OCs I have for Rebel Hearts.

Aight so context: Rebel Hearts is based on the Terraria Calamity mod and is set after the Supreme Calamitas fight (Henceforth, I shall refer to Calamitas as Cal, Catastrophe as Cat, and Devourer of Gods as Dev. Why? Because that's what they prefer to be called in the story) but before the Yharim fight. Why? Well, simple: The Yharim and Draedon fights aren't in the game yet.

Please note, the only characters original to Calamity mod involved in this story are Cal, Cat, Cataclysm (the youngest of the siblings of themself, Cal, and Cat. I'll make another post about these three and Dev since I like all four of them so much), Dev, Xeroc, Noxus, Ignalius, Providence, Yharim, Yharon, and Draedon. Everyone else is a fully original character. So, uh, yeah. Here we go!

First up is the main character: Mariko Yamamoto (he/him or they/them pronouns). He's half human and half demon and boyfriends with Cataclysm in the story. Mariko's in the Mage class but specializes particularly in ice magic. His father, who was a thief and murderer who also did quite atrocious things I don't feel comfortable mentioning on here, was killed in front of Mariko when he was only 5 years old. His mother, depressed at the loss of her husband, tragically took her own life a few weeks later. Mariko was trained in combat, education, and life skills by his brother, Kronus, until Mariko was 16. A few weeks later, Yharim came along, bringing a then brainwashed Dev and Cal with him, and demolished Mariko's entire hometown, his brother sacrificing himself to save his life. Mariko, determined to save people, guided everyone to the exits while warding off Cal, who was less aggressive seeing how noble and polite Mariko was. Afterwards, Mariko literally dies from exhaustion, but is revived by Xeroc, who mentioned that his brother's dying wish was to, "Keep Mariko safe," or something along those lines and gives Mariko temporary immortality. Three years and three hundred and sixty deaths later, he defeats Cal and her brothers, but spares their lives, knowing that they don't want to live under Yharim. Months later (and additional fifty deaths, one of which caused by a backstab from Mariko's ex-ally Necro. Also, Mariko is 20 by now), Mariko is kidnapped by Yharim and tortured, causing him to die ten more times. However, as he was chained up, Mariko saw remorse in Cal's eyes, and decided to free her himself since her brothers had escaped already. Three months later, he encounters an escaping Cal and Dev and togther, with Cal's brothers, they form an alliance to defeat Yharim, with others joining later on. Speaking of which...

Akira Tadashi (they/them) is the next major OC to join Mariko's alliance. They were a vigilante Rogue class after Yharim burned down their hometown with Yharon when Akira was 15. This, along with constant abuse from his father because of Akira's feminine looks, caused immense trauma and PTSD for Akira. As a vigilante, they sometimes encountered and helped Mariko, with Akira never saying their actual name to Mariko. Upon encountering Mariko, Cal, Cat, Cataclysm, and Dev, Mariko and Akira have a friendly duel to test each other's strength and, after Mariko wins, Akira quickly joins them in their quest to eliminate Yharim (they are 19 during the story).

Next is Josephine Joachim (she/her), or Jojo as she prefers. Raised in the village of Erupis, she is from a long line of Summoners and gained her Stardust Guardian, which she dubbed 「Guns and Roses」 (yes, this is the character most of the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure references are going to) after an encounter with Yharim when she was 14 (she's 18 in the story). Upon meeting Mariko and Cal, she offers to take the team to her hometown but tragedy strikes as her mother is killed in front of her by Draedon and his new assistant, Sunork (keep that name in mind when I give the villains analysis later this week 😉). As she watched her mother die in her arms, she realized her true purpose: Defeat Yharim and free those trembling in fear from his tyranny.

Also, Yhagrim (he/him). Labelled as the "Hermit of the Mountains," most details about him are unknown minus his age (he's 27). After being discovered by Mariko, Yhagrim explains that, in fact, he is the youngest of the sibling trio of himself, Ignalius, and Yharim (Yharim is also related to Mariko but we'll get to that in the villain info). Upon their village trying to kill Yharim for trying to obtain power with dirty deeds, Yharim goes mental and destroys the village, including killing Ignalius. When he saw his brother, Yhagrim noticed Yharim stole the dragon egg that he was given by his parents at age 13 (this egg hatches to become Yharon). Yharim then quickly takes over a majority of the world and banished Yhagrim, erasing his name from all records as well as any info about him. When asked if he wanted to join Mariko's squad, Yhagrim initially declines, but joins after hearing about some of what Yharim did to his subjects (trust me it isn't pretty. Btw, Yhagrim's Joining arc isn't complete yet but it goes DEEPLY in depth into Yharim's childhood and family life. This is just a summary). Being an expert at Melee class attacks, Yhagrim can dual wield two of the Melee's best weapons: Nanoblack Reaper and Triactis' True Paladinian Mage Hammer of Might, so don't cross him.

And finally for the main cast out of the OCs I made, Drakonis Tremaine (she/her or they/them). While this Ranger class hasn't joined Mariko's group yet, her arc is after Yhagrim's so its very soon (she even forms a love relationship with Jojo). However, I wanted to mention her here because, what the hell, I mentioned everyone else, may as well talk about her. She is notably the edgiest and angriest of the group (only getting slightly less edgy during the story might I add) and is very reckless. How this came to be? Well, as a child, she grew up around a very conservative community she didn't really care for, despite how rich her parents were. This hatred only grew as she slowly started to become more comfortable with saying she was trans feminine and lesbian. However, upon coming out to her parents, they screamed at her and abused her for several months because bastards. If that wasn't enough, because her parents were high standing citizens in her city, many of the other bigots living there harassed, bullied, and even attacked her with intent to kill. All she wanted was to be accepted and validated, which she would later gain upon meeting Mariko's group, but her idiotic community wouldn't give her the acceptance or validity she needed (this entire bigoted community thing is based on my experience as a bisexual in the highly conservative state of Kentucky. I am not okay. Send help). So, eventually, her bottled up sadness, pain, and rage erupted and she genocided everyone in her town. This temper and dark side of her was sought out by mega bastard Yharim. However, Drakonis now lived by the ideal of, "Trust nobody, not even yourself, unless your desperate," so she outright refused to join Yharim, shooting him in the arm and nearly killing him, but he escaped because of Draedon's teleportation device. Many years later (she's 18 by now), she encounters Mariko and Cal, who offer her a spot on the team. With an annoyed and sarcastic tone, she again refuses, but some midnight talks with Jojo while the group is in Erupis and another major event that takes place during Drakonis' arc force her hand causing her to join.

Main Character OC Infodump completed. Infodump on Cal, her brothers, and Dev is next, then an infodump on the villains.

Hope you enjoyed this and I'll post excerpts from the story (currently in Yhagrim's arc) soon to show what happens during each arc (which range from two to twenty five sections). : )

#terraria calamity #writing #original character

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clownkiwi · 3 years

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my lengthy-ass post on game development and game release

yeaaaaa, ive been thinking about this for the past hour or so, and especially thinking about what my friends and other young people have talked about, i just decided to type out my feelings and thoughts about game development and game releases in terms of hyped up indie games (like silksong & deltarune chapter 2 + beyond)

but since this will be a huge post, im just gonna put it under a “read more” thing. if you wanna hear my thoughts on this, you can click the link below (this is basically comparable to a video essay ig)

but if you want a tldr, what my thoughts are is that dont give your hopes up on silksong, deltarune, & any other games releasing like very soon since you gotta take content implementation, bug testing/polishing, translations, porting, marketing, & announcements into consideration

with all that said, lets begin

so i remember talking to my friends a while ago about some of the most hyped up games release dates. you know, stuff like hollow knight: silksong or deltarune chapter 2+. especially after the updates given out by each developer/team recently, people are getting very excited to try out these games very soon this very year.

and by very soon, i mean like silksong (the full entire game) coming out THIS MONTH, and the entirety of deltarune (chapter 2 & however many chapters toby fox has planned) for THIS SUMMER IN ONE PACKAGE!!!

which, when i heard these, i thought they were all too good to be true! in fact, they’re all too good to be true. silksong DEFINITELY won’t come out this month, and i know for a Fact deltarune, the full package, won’t be out by this summer. and of course, that’s because of one thing that alot of us took for granted in terms of game development: the finalized touches.

before i go on, i just want to make this very clear: i am not a game design major. im not even in the industry. if anything, im an illustration major (currently), and all of what im gonna say is what i picked up from what other game devs have talked about and from other creative media industries (movie & tv show industry precisely). this is also really just speculation and opinionated, really the main point of this whole post is that you shouldn’t bet on silksong & deltarune coming out so soon from very easy theories and crazy misunderstandings on video game development, i am just giving out my own thoughts on when the game could possibly release (but tbf, i could be very wrong and we could get silksong out this month & the entirety of deltarune this summer. i don’t feel like we will, but it could be very possible and this whole post would be absolutely worthless)

now, i know tons of young people going into game development majors or want to be in the industry have tons of respect for the game development process. and thats good!!! im glad they have respect for the people actually making the content for the game and developing the full package. however, people usually take the finalized touches, imo, for granted more than the actual content development.

because how did people come to the conclusion about silksongs & deltarunes release date so soon???

from what i’ve heard from my friends and other people, silksong should come out this month to coincide with the anniversary of hollow knight, and because “team cherry is bad at marketing and releasing a game”

and with deltarune’s (the full package) release date, that was taking the whole game into consideration, and people’s speculation that deltarune would just be 4 chapters and that the whole thing will be released as one big package instead of episodic, despite the marketing of deltarune “chapter 1″

now, these sound a little bit reasonable. i mean, its been a while since we heard of them back in 2019 and 2018 respectively, and it makes perfect sense to release silksong on hollow knight’s anniversary and deltarune as a full game This Summer.

however, i still think that’s way too good to be true, and that’s because i took a few things into consideration: content implementation, bug fixing/polishing, translation, porting, and actually releasing the game (marketing/having the game up to a releasable state, and actually releasing the game). and to put this into my perspective, i thought about mario odyssey back in 2017

if you’re a nintendo fan like me and were hyped about the nintendo switch back in 2017, then you may remember mario odyssey and the hype around that game alone. when they revealed it back in 2017, they didn’t give a release date. a day after the reveal, mario odyssey devs came out straight and said they finished the game. the game was fully completed. however, they still didn’t give a release date, they just said that they’d spend this time polishing up the game.

and, i know it’s totally unfair to compare the polishing process between nintendo games & indie games since nintendo games are very well known for their polish, so they take more time to polish a game rather than. the next call of duty game.

however, this has given me a perspective as to how long developers spent on polishing the game. if we are to take nintendo at their word back then from when they announced they finished the game to release (which was late october 2017) then that means they spent 8-9 months alone on polish and bug fixing and maybe even translation. yes, you could have a finished game with all of the content in there, and you could feasibly release it as a switch launch title in march around the same time as breath of the wild; however, the developers didn’t feel mario odyssey was ready for release.

it wasn’t until e3 2017 when they felt proud to announce the release date for mario odyssey. this is important because that means that not only were the close to finishing the polishing & bug fixing state of the game, but that means they were done with translations and ready for marketing the game out to potential consumers. they spent who knows how long on polishing (probably anywhere between 6-9 months on polishing & bug testing alone) and they probably spent around the same amount of time on marketing the game.

now, like i said, its totally unfair to compare these two different design philosophies, as one is from a huge video game conglomerate that had years of game design vs small indie studios that only released their first game in the past decade, but let’s try to put this into perspective of silksong and deltarune

with silksong, team cherry had said they had gained new experience from hollow knight, both in terms of developing the actual games themselves and releasing them. this includes developing the game, implementing the content, and finalizing everything (from bug fixing and polishing, to marketing and releasing). and in terms of how they handled hollow knight’s original release, remember. that was their first game, they were very unsure as to how to market and release a game.

after hollow knight’s success, especially on switch, however, team cherry has gained experience as to how to finalize, market and release a game at a playable, releasable state.

in my personal opinion, especially with what team cherrys marketing manager had said recently, the content is done. they’ve finished all the content for silksong (the base game) and are in the finalized state of implementing everything into the game. however, that doesn’t mean for sure the game will come out on february 24th, 2021 for steam, switch & ps4 & xbox one (maybe even ps5 & series x)

they still gotta add any finishing polish to the game, they still gotta find and fix any bugs in the game, and even when they’re confident on that regard, you still gotta take marketing into account and when’s the right time to release the game. and in that point of view, you can probably imagine it won’t be until another few months until we hear anything substantial about silksong

and especially seeing as how silksong is gonna be a switch exclusive at first, silksong could be as easily released as hollow knight’s switch port was released; as an announcement in a big event, and on that same day. which would mean we could get silksong out for the nintendo switch during e3 2021. however, i was only being easy, fair, and reasonably realistic with silksong. it could come out sooner than i thought, or even later than i thought.

now, with deltarune, i am definitely very unsure about how far that game is in development and when that game will release, especially since all we have to go off of is undertale, the demo (deltarune chapter 1), and what toby fox officially said for undertale’s 5th anniversary on famitsu & on his website.

first, let’s go off of the claims i’ve heard people say about how long this game will be. “deltarune will be 4 chapters long, because there are 4 seasons in a year like undertale and because delta is the greek number for 4.” while that sounds reasonable, why hasn’t toby fox given us a sure amount of chapters he has planned for the game?

especially considering that in his official update on his website he kept emphasizing “chapters” and “multiple chapters” and “chapters 3+”, and the fact he separated chapter 2 from chapter 3+. from his words alone, it sounds like chapter 2 will be released separately from the entire rest of the game??? but that could just be me, and people are most excited about chapter 2 more than anything, so really he could just be talking about the state of the whole game by including chapter 2 separately, especially considering the entirety of deltarune will be built off of chapter 2.

but besides my speculation on chapter 2, the fact he didn’t give a sure amount of chapter numbers, and he even specifically said on release readiness he put “0%”, that just doesn’t translate to “this game should be ready for release in the summer of 2021″, despite the fact that he said development on the game is going smoothly, even taking his physical state that hes in right now.

i personally think the game could be around 4-7 chapters long if he’s planning on implementing multiple chapters in the game, even though the first draft of the games story and dialogue has already been finished in september 2020. and even if we were to go off of deltarune being 4 chapters long, it still doesn’t feel right to say this game will be out this summer??

i personally think if the full game will be 4 chapters, i feel more confident in saying the full 4 chapter game will be out by this upcoming holiday season at the earliest, and if not then, the latest would be somewhere in the first half of 2022. and if it won’t be 4 chapters long like im guessing it would, then it could be released even later than expected. again, i’m basing this off of words taken straight from toby fox’s mouth in september 2020, things couldve obviously changed since then and i could be very wrong about when this game will come out.

but i know for a fact deltarune wont fully be released this summer, they still gotta develop the later chapters and put this game into a full package or release it episodically (even though people are confident that the game will be released in one package, i haven’t heard toby fox officially say anything about how the game will be released, just how the game has been developed so far), which of course is taking polishing/bug fixes into account, and marketing as well

i know for a fact polishing & bug fixes & even marketing wont take as long as nintendo games, but i do know they won’t be done very easily or quickly, and we still shouldn’t be too sure about when these games or any future game will come out

i guess that’s actually just the point of this whole post. unless its people with refuteable sources that have been spot on with predictions or it’s officially said from the mouths of these developers, then don’t bet on silksong or deltarune coming out so soon because of rumors or speculation

i could even be wrong about everythign that i’ve just said. im not a game major, like i said, so silksong could probably come out on february 24th, 2021, and maybe deltarune will come out this summer. i’m very sure it isn’t, but i could be wrong and know nothing about the game development process, and really toby fox’s team & team cherry are game development gods, and i’m surprised nintendo hasn’t bought them out by now so they could release splatoon 3, mario odyssey 2, mario galaxy 3, the diamond and pearl remakes, and metroid prime 4 right now /s

but yea, like i said, don’t count on silksong & deltarune coming out so soon, and maybe take the final stages of development and marketing and releasing more realistically rather than overlooking them and making unsubstantiated claims based off of speculation

#ruby says clown shit #ok thats all i wanted to say #ik at this point this is really just me rambling but i do hope you understand what i mean #again the main thing is that you shouldnt give your hopes too high on silksong & deltarune releasing so soon #and ig u could use this for any other game you're very excited about coming out #if you read the whole post however. thank you so much i didn't make any sense at all but thank you anyways #really this is all just speculation. i could be right or i could be wrong #but again just dont give your hopes up on silksong or deltarune getting released soon #and ik for a fact i left some stuff out bc i spent alot of time writing my main points #so uh. yea. thats it. idk what else to say #im just gonna post this now #if it bombs whatever. this was pointless. but if you did listen to what i had to say thank you!!!

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100: 7x05 Welcome to Bardo

Here’s finally my belated review of 7x05. I was too busy last week (with actual work) so I couldn’t write it before 7x06 aired. Then I got a bit distracted with my Dark rewatch and Dark season 3 dropping. But I’m taking a break from it to finally post this review and then, hopefully, 7x06 not long after. It’s good that I did a couple of rewatches because I could notice more details. (The review was already halfway over a week ago, so I added some remarks in italics that are things I only think now after seeing 7x06.)

This was an episode I was looking forward to and I enjoyed it, because it finally brought us to Bardo, in the belly of the beast so to speak (note: I wrote this sentence before I saw 7x06, and now I want to keep it because it’s just too funny that 7x06 put Clarke and co. in the literal belly of the beast), where the main action is likely to be, advanced the main plot of season 7 quite a lot, tied a few storylines and showed us Octavia in the present for the first time this season, and - not gonna lie - the highlight of the episode, 1 minute appearance of Bellamy, the first one since the first scenes of the season premiere.

However, I have to say that I wasn’t really impressed with the part of the episode that should have been the most interesting - Octavia’s flashbacks showing what happened to her when she was first taken to Bardo. It served its purpose by filling in the blanks, or rather confirming what I had already figured out, but for one thing, I didn’t get too much character focus in this episode, except for a touching Octavia-Hope scene and Echo’s disturbing actions in the end, which made for a pretty strong scene. And this time I was really bothered by the sloppiness of the details: from just how inconsistent the time dilation rules (rules? what rules?) seem at this point (already a problem before, but this episode made it even worse, especially since it focused on the timeline so much) to the messy selection of flashbacks in the Memory Capture scenes (while the timeline is the writers’ fault, this was obviously a case of the editor being really lazy). Maybe this is just nitpicking, but I find it really annoying when I can’t analyze details to come up theories because I have no idea which detail is a part of the plan and which is just a screw-up.

:Like everyone have some theories, including those about what really happened to Bellamy after his “death”. (At least they’re not even trying to make us believe Bellamy is dead on social media and in Inside the Episode features, like they tried last season with Clarke.)

This is why it ended up being an episode I liked less on rewatch, and I rank it behind 7x02, 7x04 and 7x01, although ahead of 7x03 (and, it turns out, 7x06). Even though the Sanctum portion of the episode was really strong and interesting this time.

Prepare for a lot of nitpicking of plot holes, and me about to incur the wrath of many t100 fans by explaining why I really dislike like the idea of an Octavia/Levitt endgame romance (it’s mostly because of their interactions in this episode).

This was the second episode this season where Marie said “Previously on” (I’m curious how many different cast members do it this season) and I think it’s the first time we saw the opening titles that were released before the S7 trailer, the ones that start with the Bardo Stone Room.

Sanctum

The deluded brainwashed folks in Sanctum who still worship the Primes have a name they have given themselves - the Faithful. And it seems that they call the people who aren’t brainwashed ‘the Fallen’. Has the show ever had such an annoying character as Trey, their leader?

I must say I related to Murphy when he suggested that maybe they should just let them burn themselves if that’s what they want, instead of letting them exert control that way. Yes, I know it’s bad. But that’s one of the things Murphy is good for, to sometimes say things that we all kind of think but would feel ashamed of saying aloud - at least if it was real life. However, Murphy - and I’m sure everyone - changed his mind when he saw they were going to burn children. And the father of the child who was about to be sacrificed (who we now know is called Jeremiah) looked confused and terrified. Maybe it’s just Trey and a couple of other fanatical people influencing and manipulating the others. Unfortunately, real life examples of people doing horrible things - even to their own children - in the name of what they believe in, to make me hesitate to call this too extreme to be plausible. But what is going on in the heads of these people? At least before, when the people of Sanctum were sacrificing their children or other loved ones or themselves, they believed it meant living forever and being one with the gods, but this?

Nelson is becoming quite a likable character even though he has only had a brief scene or two here and there. (And then the show goes and does... whatever the hell they’re doing with him in 7x06.) Like this time, when he was the only one who tried to save the Faithful woman who set herself on fire, explaining that the people of Sanctum are still their people, even the Faithful. (Now this is a much nicer face of the Children of Gabriel. Where was he when CoG were killing Nightblood people/potential hosts, even though that’s not the most efficient way to stop the Primes - as opposed to killing the Primes and destroying their mind drives?)

Great little character moment for Emori when she asked Nelson: “Even though they cast you out?” He probably doesn’t even know how much that resonates with her. Is this foreshadowing her storyline this season? Will she have to interact with or do something for the Grounders - or even specifically her clan, Sangedakru (which also happens to be the clan where Sheidheda was from - and the most likely to follow him if/when they find out who he is, since they seem to consider him their “greatest champion’)? (The latter seems slightly less likely now that Indra seems to have made them respect her authority... but I doubt it’s going to be that easy...)

BTW, speaking of Emori. let me just address the speculation that she’s pregnant - apparently based on the fact she threw up?! She threw up because she got radiation poisoning, FFS. If she were pregnant, the fetus would at least be in huge danger of not surviving. Maybe the writers of The 100 didn’t know or didn’t expect the audience to know about the effects of radiation, but come on, they must be aware that everyone has seen Chernobyl.) And Jackson, a doctor, examined her right there.

Murphy being snarky: “I’m tired of being a hero”. Hmm... when was the last time, Murphy, you were a hero without someone roping you in first, or without you following Emori’s lead or making a last moment decision? However, while Murphy likes to claim he doesn’t want to be a hero, Bellamy told him in 5x01 that Murphy’s problem on the Ring was that he actually wanted to be a hero and felt useless because he didn’t have the opportunity. Still, he’s come a long way since season 1, when he wasn’t exactly that protective of children.... Granted, Charlotte was not an innocent, but she was still a child. And he was 17 at the time, now he’s an adult.

I’m enjoying watching Indra in her new leadership role and her stand-offs with RussHeda. It’s very fortunate that Adina is not busy with AHS anymore, and JR Bourne makes for a fantastic villain - in a completely different way than Russell was. Russell was soft and emotional while also pompous and hypocritical and seemed to believe his own BS, which made him all the more annoying. Sheidheda is much smarter and has no delusions about being a good guy. He’s scary and dark but he also knows how to turn the situation to his benefit and has very rational remarks about how ridiculous the Faithful are with their tactic. He clearly has nothing but contempt for them. “My, my, what foolish little lambs you are.” (Which ties into this season’s themes of Shepherd and the flock.)

We learn more about Indra’s backstory, and this is the most I’ve been interested in Grounder history since... ever?

It’s also quite dark how she manipulates Jackson with his desire for revenge, by keeping the truth from him that RussHeda is not Russell. But Jackson’s dark side of his thirst for revenge for Abby has made him the most interesting that he’s ever been as a character.

I think that this storyline will eventually somehow tie with the main storyline. If nothing else then because Sheidheda and Madi are connected to the knowledge from the Flame, which is connected to Becca and ALIE and events from the prequel. Especially since it increasingly seems like the “great war” that’s being talked about may have something to do with AIs...

Bardo

Timeline and time dilation

Let me get this off my chest first... The timeline of this episode was confusing for some viewers in terms of the sequence of events. That isn’t the case for me - the problem is that the amount of time that was supposed to pass makes the time dilation seem really inconsistent.

So, chronologically, things happened like this:

in 6x08 (some 4 or 5 Sanctum days ago): Diyoza goes into the Anomaly; ends up on Skyring

Octavia goes into the Anomaly 6 seconds later, ends up on Skyring, 3 months (Skyring time) after Diyoza arrived. she gives birth.

Octavia and Diyoza spend 10 years there raising Hope.

Octavia sends a message to Bellamy in a bottle, not realizing the bottle ended up on Bardo (apparently, the default setting of the Anomaly, is: you go from Sanctum to Skyring and from Skyring to Bardo). Disciples capture her and Diyoza and take them to Bardo.

While Hope spends 10 more years on Skyring with Dev, before jumping to Bardo, Octavia is taken to Bardo, tried to run away, then is taken to Memory Capture. This is 45 (Bardo) days ago. She resists at first, but 34 Bardo days ago, she allows Levitt access to her memories and he starts watching them in a more coherent and chronological manner. 31 Bardo days ago, after he’s seen her memories up to the season 3 finale, Hope comes to rescue her.

Levitt helps them and Octavia is sent back to Sanctum, losing her memories, and runs back into Gabriel’s arms (no, I don’t mean it like that and I don’t ship them) - 10 Sanctum seconds after she ran into the Anomaly! (This is still 6x08)

7 Bardo days ago (which is some 2 days ago on Sanctum) or 6x13, Hope (who had probably been immediately captured when trying to save her mother - I guess she and the Disciples spent 24 days waiting for Octavia to enter Hope’s mind code into the Anomaly Stone...) is sucked into Sanctum, stabs Octavia with the tag which pulls her to Bardo. Octavia is brought to MCap again, and apparently Levitt talks to her and then she is brought to the Stone Room to talk Bellamy down. Something happens to Bellamy and Octavia is made to believe he’s dead.

in the present, Hope, Echo and Gabriel (after spending 5 years on Skyring, which was somehow 2 days on Sanctum (?)) jump to Bardo, kill some people, pretend to be DIsciples and listen to Anders’ speech, find Octavia, and see the memory of whatever happened or did not happen to Bellamy.

Now this means that the time differentials between planets have been like this:

Sanctum: 6 seconds = Skyring: 3 months

Sanctum:10 seconds = Skyring: over 20 years (because Hope spent 20 years on Skying and at least a few hours on Bardo, all in those 10 Sanctum seconds)

Sanctum: a few seconds (under 10 seconds, probably a lot less) = Bardo: 14 days (from “45 days ago” to “31 days ago”)

Sanctum: about 2 or 3 days = Bardo: 24 days

Sanctum: 2 days = Bardo: 7 days

Sanctum: a little over 1 day = Skyring: 5 years

See the problem here?

@justbecauseyoubelievesomething pointed out before that the time differentials may vary a lot because of planets orbiting their suns (and Sanctum orbiting its planet and the suns) in elliptic orbits, so distances from the black hole change. However, the problem with this is that 1) they haven’t said that on the show and instead keep talking about the time differentials as if they are at least roughly the same or similar all the time, and 2) these fluctuations vary way too much for it to make any sense? If it was just 1:3 and then 1:7, for instance, OK - but how the heck does the time differential between Sanctum and Bardo go from 1:200,000 to 1:3?

How is this supposed to work? Do people on Bardo go:

“We’re sending a team to Sanctum!”

“Understood! We will need just an hour to retrieve the target!” “But Sir... they’ll return in 20 years! We have to wait till next week, then an hour will be just 7 hours here!”

“All right, we have to wait for the next week then!”

And do these fluctuations happen just between Sanctum and Bardo or Sanctum and Skyring, or also between Bardo and Skyring? The latter would make their prison system quite complicated and tricky!

A couple of other pieces of info -

Levitt put the “Trust Bellamy” note in Hope’s arm during his MCap session (because he knew what Bellamy was to Octavia), but Anders apparently did not realize why Hope was bleeding or that it had something to do with Levitt, though he was the only one who could’ve had any contact with her?

One thing I don’t get is the part where Anders says: “it’s why you’re a prisoner dressed like a savage so you can get close to Aunty O”. Why did they have to dress Hope in Grounder-like clothes, exactly?

We also see that Meredith’s team was told to go to Sanctum and find Clarke - though it’s unclear why they waited so long to send them. Or why Meredith’s team waited about a day and a half to contact Clarke. We see Anders telling Meredith: “Because of the time dilation, no one will come for you if you fail” - and I have no idea that’s supposed to mean, especially since I don’t know what time differential it was supposed to be at the time.

Octavia in Memory Capture

...And I’m gonna nitpick some more.

Maybe it’s not a big deal that many of the scenes we saw as Octavia’s memories didn’t make sense, because they were either scenes she wasn’t present for or scenes from the future (relative to the moment when she was on Bardo the first time), but I expected better, after the wonderful attention to detail in last season’s Nevermind and Matryoshka, where neither the prop masters nor editors and sound editors made any mistakes with what we saw and heard of Clarke’s memories.

So, 45 days ago, when Octavia was first brought to Bardo, and Anders and Levitt were seeing random memories against her will, the first thing she’s told is to imagine someone holding out a hand to her to help her, and we see brief flashes of various memories (aka scenes from the previous seasons) before her mind settles of many different images of Bellamy:

Aurora with baby Octavia

Lincoln, just before his death

Indra - when Octavia finds her and talks to Clarke and Lexa (3x05) - of course this is there because of Indra, but I don’t know if Clarke is also supposed to be one of the people O thinks of: we see her quite clearly as she’s saying she must talk to Bellamy to save their people

and then a bunch of images of Bellamy - which is where things start not making sense, because while we see him

in the Pilot on the dropship (that makes sense)

in season 5 when he argued with Octavia (also makes sense)

but we also see him dressed Gabriel’s cardigan, which he only wore after reuniting with Octavia in 6x10, after she came back from Bardo, and one of the images is definitely from 6x13 when Hope came from the Anomaly (future scenes!)l

we also see the scene where Bellamy was looking for Octavia and talked to Clarke in 1x06 (where Octavia was obviously not present for! It’s also the scene right after the Aurora flashback - the editor were obviously being super lazy)

and Bellamy in an anti-radiation suit in 4x13 when he had to leave Clarke (the only way Octavia could remember that is if she had a telepathic link to her brother!)

Other memories include Murphy in Pike’s class (clearly just as a cool transition from a Murphy scene in Sanctum), but it was really funny how horrified Octavia seemed when Levitt asked her if he was her lover. ;) Levitt clearly got a bunch of images of her friends - including Raven, Clarke (from the Pilot!) and Indra, whose images we see on screen in addition to Bellamy - and he finally sees a bunch of memories of Hope on Skyring, which is what she was trying to hide the most.

At this point, Octavia desperately tries to make a deal with Levitt - he doesn’t mention Hope in his report, and lets her go later, and she’ll let him into her memories. Just before Levitt starts watching her memories in the chronological order, we hear some more of Octavia’s memories in her head (they aren’t showing on the screen, where the same flashbacks as before are playing):

banishing Echo in 4x11

Bellamy deciding to leave her in 6x03 (“Are you out of your mind? You didn’t need to kill anyone!”)

Miller saying “Blodreina gave that honor to me!”

Octavia yelling “You’re dead to me!” to Bellamy (in that disturbing scene in 3x10) and...

Hallucination!Pike telling her she caused a world to be destroyed and herself yelling she wanted “REDEMPTION!” - which is another inconsistency, because comes from a red toxin hallucination that she’ll only have after she returns to Sanctum (in 6x09)! At least you could say this was already in her subconsciousness, but these were supposed to her memories!

When she starts cooperating, Levitt basically binges the first 3 seasons of The 100 - or rather, a version of it where Octavia is the main character and everything is only from her POV - ending with 3x16, which is probably pretty significant, as they showed several moments right before Clarke destroyed the City of Light and the moments after she came back. We see Bellamy telling everyone what to do as they were fighting chipped people to protect Clarke, Clarke on the throne in the City of Light, Pike fighting chipped!Jaha, Pike saving Octavia, and, and after the destruction of the COL, Murphy and Emori hugging, and finally - Octavia stabbing Pike.

This is where Levitt goes “Yes!” - which makes me (and Octavia) feel real tonal dissonance. He reveals himself to be a true Octavia stan, the kind who thinks their favorite character simply cannot go wrong and who doesn’t just defend her and have an understanding and empathy for her motives and emotional states (which is great), but cheers even the bad things she did (which is not great). Now, if Levitt is meant to be a representation of a typical stan, that’s great. The show has, this season in particular (and even in S6 to a point - through Jordan) been dealing with the idea of Clarke, Octavia and other main characters as living legends. And a lot of t100 fans - including every single YouTube reactor I’ve seen - always cheers and says they’re happy when she kills Pike. I didn’t feel that way, so there’s that. And sure, some of that is because I didn’t hate Pike. But what’s more important is: that moment was never portrayed as a triumphant one. (It it was meant to be, it would have been Octavia killing Pike in a battle, or something similar to the scene where Lincoln killed Cage Wallace in 2x16, not Octavia stabbing Pike when he didn’t expect it, after they had fought together and right after he had saved her life. It wouldn’t have shown Bellamy and Clarke worried about Octavia, or made it her ‘start of darkness’ moment that led to her becoming a murder-obsessed assassin in season 4. And 6x09 made a point that Octavia herself saw this act as a wrong one - that she thinks she didn’t have the right to murder someone in cold blood even though she had legitimate reasons to hate him. The show generally doesn’t portray revenge-murder as a good thing. And that is true in this scene, too: we see flashbacks of Pike at his most heroic (fighting chipped Jaha and Pike right after he saved Octavia’s life) before the scene of her stabbing him, and while Levitt is like “YES!”, Octavia seems upset to see that moment again and a tear is falling from her eyes.

So why, then, is the show apparently portraying Levitt’s uncritical stanning of everything Octavia does as a great thing, and why are so many fans and reviewers convinced that Levitt is a great new love interest for Octavia, possibly her endgame love interest, because of his adoration of her and the praise her gives her? (And 7x06 has made me think that, yes, the show is definitely portraying him as a potential love interest.) Yes, I agree that Octavia needs someone to help boost her self-esteem and tell her she’s not a monster, that she’s a good person at heart, that she’s worthy of love. But it would mean so much more if it came from someone who was able to relate to her as an equal and also acknowledge her dark side and be critical of the bad things she did. “I understand why you did this and it doesn’t make you a terrible person” is different from “Everything you did is right and awesome.” I liked what he said about her as a child, how she was even then being responsible and protecting her mother and brother and not just herself by hiding. But it’s absurd to tell someone “You’re not a killer, you’re a warrior” right after you’ve seen them murder someone out of revenge in what most definitely wasn’t a battle or a fight. The fact is that Octavia is both a warrior and a killer. They all are - she, Clarke, Bellamy, all of them. Having a good heart and understandable motives doesn’t change that fact.

If Levitt is supposed to just be a Disciple with a crush that makes him help Octavia, fine, but I can’t see a potential romance there - it would be like a relationship between a celebrity and an obsessive fan.

World-building

This episode was full of world-building info, probably what I liked about it the most:

Levitt seemed particularly interested in Clarke and the fact she was in the City of Light, which makes me think that the reason why she is ‘the key’ in the eyes of the Disciples has something to do with Becca’s tech and ALIE in particular, and that the enemy they’re afraid of may be some sort of an AI.

We finally saw Bardo. Not that it was surprising since we already knew from the opening titles and 7x04 that the compound was underground and that it was a dome with artificial atmosphere and that it included an arboretum, Stone Room, which is on the way to the cells, etc. I checked to see if it matched the layout drawn by Orlando. I had assumed that the numbers were levels in the structure, but while Orlando put Arboretum as 1, it is on level 2.

It seems that all the Disciples were either black or white clothes. (Fits with the black and white way of thinking.) From what we’ve seen so far, it seems that the military, so to speak (fighters/those who jump to other planets) wear black, while the Stone Conductors, people who do the Memory Capture, other scientists, as well as other personnel (like janitors or gardeners/groundskeepers) wear white. Anders himself, the First Disciple, wears white, so I suppose he is one of the “civilians’.

Anders claims that the Disciples have risen above “lesser emotions” and learned to value the collective rather than the individuals. But from what we’ve seen of other Disciples, that’s BS. That may be their ideology, but in fact, they’re just the same as anyone else and just as prone to developing feelings of love and bonds of friendship as anyone else.

Levitt is Level 11! Which makes you wonder how hard the Disciples really check how ‘devout’ the Disciples are. But maybe he’s just too important as an expert,

We see the MCap technology at work. But we also see that it’s not easy to extract memories from an unwilling subject. Levitt has apparently mostly done this to the Disciples themselves (you’d think most of them would be willing, but obviously some were not, since they sound like they already have experience with unwilling subjects.) Levitt tries to get Octavia to comply because he’s a Good Cop by telling her that they may get his colleague instead, who will “burn right through” her brain. (But as we see from the Diyoza flashback in 7x06, that’s not true - the other guy, Kirsch, doesn’t do that when Diyoza is uncooperative. I don’t think they are actually able to do that.)

The Disciples usually send teams every 30 minutes (but these 30 minutes are drastically different on Sanctum and on Skyring!)

More about how the Anomaly Stones work: while Dev told Hope that all you need to do Is think where you want to go and the helmet will do the rest, it’s not actually that magical - in fact, you actually need someone (normally the Conductor) to push the buttons on the Anomaly Stone.

According to Levitt, pulling someone from another planet through the Anomaly is “ safe 8 out of 10 times". What happens the other 20% of times? Is it really being “turned inside out” as Hope said in 7x02?

It’s also confirmed that people lose their memories if they travel without the helmets from a faster to a slower time dilated planet (which I had already figured out based on the fact that the danger only seemed to exist when travelling from Skyring/Bardo to Sanctum and from Skyring to Bardo, but not the other way round).

When Hope was about to leave to save her mother, Levitt tried to tell her: “They have helmets, too, that means that…” – what? That they can see her? Meredith’s team didn’t see Raven, so it can’t be that. But do they have some other way of communicating? Do you have to be actively thinking for them to detect you? Whatever it is, she should’ve listened as she quickly got caught.

Eyes are important as it’s through them that the biometric signature/mind code is made. And the Disciples have a very quick way of painting/tattooing the code on someone’s back.

What exactly is the problem with the atmosphere on Bardo? There is a biohazard alert as Octavia is brought in and she’s checked for some sort of an infection (“she’s clean”). It seems that the problem is with some kind of a disease (especially with what we hear from Levitt in 7x06).

In the category of revelations that weren’t a surprise at all since the fandom has figured them out weeks ago, Gabriel realizes that there is a Stone on Earth (as we saw in 7x04 and in the opening titles - it’s the offline planet), by listening to Anders’ speech where he mentions that the Shepherd delivered them by a stone. (Confirming the theory that Disciples are Second Dawn even before that was technically confirmed in 7x06 and that Cadogan led them through the Anomaly some time after the Apocalypse and after burning Becca. I suppose they disconnected the Stone so unbelievers could not follow them.)

There’s a ton of new info about the history of Bardo. According to the Disciples, the compound was built by “Native Bardoans”, who went extinct before the Disciples got there. And they were supposedly giants, but were turned by something called “Gen9″ into “crystal giants”?! Levitt says that the whole min code could fit on a Bardoan’s arm? (How does he know that?) I call BS on that. The rooms and doors in the compound are tall, but wide enough just for a human-sized person to pass through. (And there are plenty of human buildings with very tall doors and ceilings.) The retinal scans are fitted to the human eye, all the technology is human-sized, and, most importantly, the keys on the Anomaly Stone are the size of a human finger. The whole thing reminds of many legends that various big ancient buildings were built by giants. I still think Eligius III people were the ones who built the compound. We still haven’t heard anything of them and where they fit. And with the time dilation, they could’ve been on Bardo for decades or centuries before Second Dawn arrived a few Earth years later.

What is Gen9? I assume it’s a disease (especially with all the mentions of the polluted atmosphere on the surface), but it’s also been suggested it may be a computer program, which would fit with the idea of the enemy being an AI or connected to AIs. I like the theory that it’s not short from “Generation 9″ but “Genesis 9″, which would fit with the religious themes (the Disciples mix and match a lot of pseudo-Christian and pseudo-Buddhist ideas). Genesis 9 is the chapter about God’s Covenant with Noah, where God tells him that humans should go and multiple and feed on plants and animals, but they mustn’t eat what has lifeblood in it still, and they mustn’t shed the blood of another human being. “I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.“

These are the transcripts of all the prayers and speeches of the Disciples from this episode, as much as I was able to hear them:

[prayer] “In the light of the Shepherd, for all mankind. He will save us from the war to end all wars”

[female speaker] "The Shepherd brings us wisdom. The Shepherd brings us love, for all mankind. (...) Humanity (...) (final days)… burned, (...) as bombs launched, your ancestors chose a different path. There will soon be time when we will be tested to a man, and we will be victorious. For all mankind!"

[male introducing Anders]“And now, it is my greatest honor to present the esteemed First Disciple, who will lead us through today’s lesson on the Book of Allness.”

Anders: “Thank you, Emilio. In the light of the Shepherd, for all mankind!

Let’s first take a moment to acknowledge our newest class of Level 9s. You’ve each demonstrated impressive devotion to the Shepherd. Our predecessors on this planet did not share that faith. Like our ancestors on Earth, they destroyed their world. Even before they were wiped out by Gen 9 and turned into crystal giants, their atmosphere was so polluted they were forced to build forests underground in order to breathe. Even the rain that should fall from the sky, falls instead by their technology. For that, we thank them. But where are they now? We know that by the time the Shepherd delivered us with the stone, the Bardoans were gone, extinct. Why is that? [Someone from the crowd: “They didn’t have the Shepherd!” Everyone laughs. Oh, Disciple humor... ] No, they didn’t, did they? They [unintelligible, Gabriel speaks over this part]… they lost their last great war. That same enemy is coming after us now. But, in the light of the Shepherd, we will not lose. [crowd cheers] We’re close now. We’ve located the key. After hundreds of years it has returned to us. Ours is the generation that will win the last war! Our Shepherd will rise [unintelligible] and we will win (?) this fight, for all mankind!”

Hi, Bellamy! Bye, Bellamy! See ya later!

And for the most important thing in this episode: yes, we were blessed with a rare and joyous moment,, a sighting of Bellamy Blake on screen (and not in MCap but in an actual new scene), as occurrence as rare this season as (probably) the Disciples seeing the Shepherd.

While absolutely no one is buying the fake-out death (about as convincing as Clarke’s in 6x04 or Octavia’s in 6x13, though I now wonder if leaving Bellamy out of the poster and Bob out of the Countdown was a part of the fake-out they committed to), there have been many different theories about what really happened there, if the whole scene was staged or if it even happened or was an implanted memory. (The glitch effects between scenes may have contributed to that theory, but the glitch effect occurred at random points, e.g. when Hope remembered her conversation with Anders, and I don’t see why that would be a false memory.)

For a moment, I even wondered if Levitt talking to Octavia was her hallucination (seeing a comforting figure) because it seemed quite implausible that Anders and the others had only then started to figure out that he got too close to her, and that they were still letting her come anywhere near her. But 7x06 proved I was wrong. Well, maybe Anders has realized Levitt had helped Octavia and Hope and it’s all some elaborate trap where he is using Levitt as an unwitting pawn, though that seems a bit convoluted... or maybe Anders just isn’t actually that smart as we assume he should be.

I’ve never believed in the ‘implanted memory’ theory, and people have since pointed out that there’s a sign of damage from the blast in the Stone Room.

The other prevalent theory is that the whole scene was staged by the Disciples and that Bellamy himself was in on it because he’s been brainwashed. The arguments are - it’s unlikely that Bellamy managed to overpower a few Disciples after being captured unconscious, and that there’s supposedly something “off” about him in that scene because he had been crying just before that. I don’t think there’s anything “off”, and he had learned that Octavia was alive, so why do people expect him to be crying rather than fighting to save her? As for it being unlikely that he killed a couple of Disciples immediately, overpowered another and captured the Conductor - I’m sorry, but have you seen the Disciples this season? They are being killed by pretty much every main character. And maybe some fans see Bellamy as a soft sweet teddy bear of a man and think that only women on t100 are allowed to be good fighters, but canon Bellamy is pretty damn badass and really good at fighting. What would be actually hard to believe is that Bellamy could get brainwashed over the course of a few hours. I’m sorry, but no.

People also said the fact that Bellamy asked what the heck Octavia was talking about when she used the opportunity to tell him that Disciples wanted Clarke (”I’ll tell them everything, even about Clarke”) was a sign he had lost his memories or been brainwashed and that he didn’t know who Clarke was - which is a really convoluted argument. The simplest and most obvious answer is that he was surprised and wanted to know what they wanted with Clarke.

There was actually something odd about that scene - but it was Anders’ behavior. after Octavia said that line about Clarke and after Bellamy reacted to it, he got a very strange look on his face, and the camera was focusing on him. The second odd thing is that the Conductor got very upset at that moment and started begging Anders: “Sir, please, no”, before Anders shut him up - which seemed like an overreaction to the possibility of... what? Letting a prisoner go? This makes me think that the Disciple on the floor detonating a grenade was a part of the ploy by Anders. He certainly was never going to send Bellamy to Sanctum - I have an idea where he actually sent him - but what if he was also signalling something to the Disciple - that he should detonate the grenade? Which would be a smoke screen so Octavia, Levitt and others wouldn’t know what really happened to Bellamy and would think he was dead.

But why would Anders want Octavia to think he was dead? It’s certainly not to make her cooperate, because that was only ever likely to have the opposite effect. But also - why would the Disciples focus on making Octavia tell them more about Clarke, when they could try to use Bellamy for the same purpose? From Octavia’s memories, they must have known how close Bellamy and Clarke are. (Or did Levitt tell Anders that? If he did not, that was an additional reason to suspect Levitt and hide information from him. If Anders was only starting to realize there’s a connection between Clarke and Bellamy, that could have changed his plans.) And they could do more with Bellamy than just try to get his memories. They could use him (his life, his safety) to draw in Clarke, the “key”. If Anders has sent Bellamy somewhere and wanted to hide his whereabouts and make people on Bardo think he’s dead for the time being, the blast could be a good distraction, before he plays that card. (All of this, of course, assuming Anders is actually smart.)

Now, where is Bellamy? He certainly wasn’t sent back to Sanctum, and Anders had no reason to send him to Skyring or Nakara (if he needs him alive and under his control, that would defeat the purpose), And there’s no indication that it’s possible for the Anomaly Stone to send a person to another location on the same planet. So, I believe Bellamy has been sent to Etherea. That would be the reason to finally go to the only planet of the 6 that we haven’t seen yet. I’ve also had the theory that Etherea is the slowest of all the planets - because, if you’re using time dilation as a plot point, why wouldn’t you milk it for its worth? And if that’s the case - good news is that Bellamy won’t get almost any older, but the bad news is that he’s lost all his memories. But not too bad of a news, since he’d get them back as soon as he gets to a faster planet.

This would open some juicy story possibilities...

An Echo of Finn (and Octavia?)

This episode continued the trend we’ve already seen in 7x04 - Hope is becoming more of a killer after her first kill on Skyring, Echo is reverting to her identity as as ruthless spy and killer (and occasionally murderer, as at the of this episode), in her 5-year single-minded mission to save Bellamy and now as a result of believing that Bellamy is dead and her mission was for nothing. And Gabriel is getting more and more frustrated with both of them, especially Echo, and constantly going “will you stop killing people, please?” (Well, not in those words.) (And I’m wondering how close he really got to the others, since they spent 5 years together and were preparing to jump to Bardo, but Hope never told Gabriel about Levitt?! )

There was some irony earlier in the episode when Hope seemed almost ready to attack Anders in front of hundreds of Disciples (she really hates him - I guess because she knew they were torturing her mother), and Echo told her to “pull herself together”, since it was Echo later that lost it, murdered Kirsch the memory capture guy in a particularly brutal way, and blew their chances of using him to get to Diyoza, which would’ve been a terrible blow to Hope if Diyoza hadn’t freed herself anyway, as we see in 7x06.

(Kudos to Tasya for being really good in that scene, she made Echo look genuinely scary. I’ve often criticized her acting, but this time she was really on point.)

So let’s talk about this moment and Echo’s arc this season.

Some people say that this is just a normal reaction to “losing the love of your life” and that everyone would react the same. But we’ve seen other characters lose people they deeply loved, and they did not react the same way. We’ve seen Bellamy react to Octavia’s “death” in S4 and Clarke’s “death” in S6. We’ve seen Clarke react to many of her loved ones’ deaths, most recently to her mother’s. Her grief over her mother was shown in detail over several episodes, and we saw her explode in the end, but while she beat up Russell, she stopped herself from killing him (and Russell was the actual person who murdered her mother and had previously tried to murder Clarke herself and stole her body for his daughter). In S6, Bellamy wanted to kill Russell (again, the actual person responsible for Clarke’s death) and burn the Sanctum down, but he stopped himself. In this very episode, we see Octavia react to her brother’s “death”. which she sees as very real, but she hasn’t started going around and killing anyone she gets her hands on.

Now, Octavia of the past, S3 Octavia, was different, far less mature, more violent, and she did react violently to Lincoln’s death, including becoming a murderer - now, the person she murdered was the one directly responsible for Lincoln’s death, but she also went on to become an assassin and became rather murder-happy, before stopping herself just as she was about to kill Ilian the same way Pike killed Lincoln.

Another obvious parallel is to Finn and the way he was losing control and becoming more violent, ruthless and selfish, from murdering a Grounder prisoner, to wanting to leave Mel literally hanging from a cliff because she was unimportant in his eyes compared to his goal of finding and “saving” Clarke (who, it turned out, didn’t even need saving and had saved herself), to completely losing it and killing a bunch of completely innocent people. The guy Echo killed here wasn’t really innocent, but he wasn’t responsible for Bellamy’s “death”, either, and Echo’s behavior on her quest to save Bellamy has been increasingly violent throughout the season. And, while we knew Clarke was alive and well, we don’t know where Bellamy is but he is still alive and will probably eventually meet Echo again, just like Clarke reunited with Finn.

(Mind you: I don’t think Echo’s killing spree is the reason why Becho will fall apart. The relationship was already disintegrating in S6, if you pay any attention. This is more about Echo herself and where she finds herself without that relationship. Finn’s killing spree wasn’t the reason why Flarke fell apart, either. Clarke still had feelings for Finn, but she had rejected him for other reasons, i.e. his earlier behavior. )

What do all these actions have in common? They weren’t romantic, they were f*cking unhealthy. When Finn told Clarke that he killed all those people for her, she was horrified, and I was really angry at him for telling her something that terrible.

In Finn’s case, he may have been suffering from PTSD, and his feelings for Clarke were turning into an obsession and made him look almost like a stalker. In Echo’s case, she has serious identity issues and her childhood trauma and conditioning by Queen Nia. But the show is, in this case, more open about the fact that, for Echo, it’s not all about romantic love. or love in general. She has lost her purpose. Bellamy is not just her boyfriend, he’s her King, like Nia and Roan before him. Echo’s own subconsciousness has been telling her that this is a problem, and that her relationship with Bellamy is very unbalanced. “Without Bellamy, who will you follow? Without someone to follow, who are you?” It also told her that she has remained the same as before she became a part of the Spacekru and his girlfriend: “Once a killer, always a killer.” ““The honorless spy who would do anything for her queen, even betray the man she now claims to love?” In S5 and S6, Bellamy was trying to not “make the same mistakes”, and “do better”, and was always rejecting Echo’s more ruthless suggestions of how to deal with any potential enemies, and she always fell in line as he was the leader/ Without him, she is reverting to her old patterns.

It’s not romantic or a sign of soulmate love to wrap your whole identity over one person. It’s really unhealthy. It was also unhealthy when Octavia said she didn’t have a home and didn’t belong anywhere after Lincoln’s death because he was “her home”. She had to grow out of that. Maybe she could offer some advice to Echo now. Will it work or not? I don’t know.

What I’m sure of is that Becho is doomed, but the writing on the wall has been there at least throughout season 6, if not already in season 5. What I don’t know is how Echo’s own arc this season will end. She will have to forge a new identity, but what will it be? Will she start following someone else? (That would be a pretty depressing arc.) Become independent, but still a ruthless killer? Will she start thinking about the morality of her actions as most other o the major characters do? Will she fail to find any solution and will die? Not every character on the show gets to have an uplifting arc where they solve their issues. Her arc is different from Finn’s because his dark arc was a completely new and shocking development, while Echo is reverting to who she used to be. But I think it’s more likely that she gets a more positive ending than Finn, because the show has been paralleling storylines in seasons 6-7 to storylines of early seasons (like Sanctum-Mount Weather) but with a more positive outcome.

Best moments/lines

While Bellamy’s 1-minute appearance was undoubtedly the highlight of the episode, my favorite scenes were Octavia’s reunion and goodbye with Hope (even with Hope being an adult now, Octavia talks to her as a surrogate aunt: “I love you, little one, don’t you ever forget it”), the scenes with Murphy and the kids and the battle of wills between Indra and Sheidheda.

The best line by far was Hope’s reply to Anders:

“This is what happens when you value individuals above the collective”

Hope: “It’s called love, you son of a bitch,”

Body count:

One Faithful burned herself.

another fanatical suicide: a Disciple who detonated the grenade (at Anders’ orders?) in the flashback scene with Bellamy

a bunch of Disciples killed, again. For a group that’s supposed to be so badass and scary, they really failing to be that, since they’re constantly getting their asses kicked. OK, they are not all Level 12, and Orlando was both Level 12 and a teacher of fighting skills. And yes, Echo and Hope (and Gabriel, who hasn’t killed anyone so far) have had almost 5 years of training by Orlando, while Octavia and Bellamy (and Diyoza, of course) are incredibly badass even without it. But you can’t keep them getting killed so easily and expect me to take them seriously. This time, Bellamy killed a couple in the flashback, and Hope and Echo killed a few, including a particularly sadistic murder of Kirsch the Memory Cap guy.

Rating: 7.5/10

#the 100 #the 100 season 7 #the 100 7x05 #welcome to bardo #octavia blake #bellamy blake #indra kom trikru #indra #sheidheda #john murphy #echo kom azgeda #hope diyoza #gabriel santiago #cadogan #the disciples #bardo #time dilation #the anomaly

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danwhobrowses · 4 years

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A Personal Rant before Sword and Shield comes out

I’ve sat idly by for months, tried to weather a few negative responses but given that it’s now 6 days from release and I’m hearing that devs are getting literal death threats I’m going to put my foot down

If you’re already shitting on a game that hasn’t been released yet, you are all juvenile bitches, and I’m about to tell you why.

Before we begin, I’m not saying that you’re not allowed to dislike a game, that happens, but usually it happens after you play a game, not before.

You are viewing this game through a keyhole and judging the room and what you’re seeing is not worthy of this much hate. Let’s start with the big one Dexit: Not as Big as You Think Having No National Dex is of course not ideal, but it doesn’t ruin the game. Let’s Go has no National Dex, all it had was Alola forms and nobody whinged about it. Ruby and Sapphire didn’t have a National Dex until FRLG, and nobody whinged about it. Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Moon do not have a National Dex And Nobody Whinged About It Do you know why? Because it’s not actually a big deal. People who complain about it are bandwagoning because ‘Dexit’ is a meme, its name literally parodies an event in current Britain that many people don’t actually want to happen. Now currently, the anger of Dexit is that Bulbasaur and Squirtle are not in it, which frankly is hilarious because the last wave of bitching was ‘Kanto mons are getting all the new stuff’. You wanna know how many main series versions Bulbasaur and Squirtle have not been in? Seven, only way to get them is trade and event. The other complaint is that there’s ‘only 400′ Pokémon. Remember those days where people were fine with 150? 400 is huge, in fact it’s 3 less than USUM and it’s not accounting for the Gigantamax forms Don’t let headlines fool you either, Sun and Moon had 302 Pokémon, it’s far from the ‘lowest dex number since 2003′. Do your own research with these things. Kalos’ regional dex was 151, BW2 was 300, BW 153, Sinnoh 210, RSE has 386 and GSC had 252 Don’t get me wrong, it smarts that some Pokémon isn’t there, but it’s not a dealbreaker, like let’s be honest here. For a good year and a half all your pokémon are gonna do is sit in an unused cartridge or a PC box, you’re literally whining about the fact that you can’t move your perfect IV Pokémon from one box to another. You could simply just let them stay in Let’s Go or USUM, you don’t have to use Bank or Home on continued subscription for that, so your complaints are only set on the foundation that you feel like you have to continually pay to not transfer your Pokémon, Finally, people act like these Pokémon are deleted forever, they’re not, this is for spacing to make sure this game doesn’t break down from the sheer mass of models and textures it has to maintain in a massive open world space, the local and online camping and battles. Just use the Pokémon that are there! There’s new Pokémon don’t you wanna try those? You can also look at FRLG or Emerald and consider that maybe more Pokémon will get patched in once the game proves to be stable. I don’t think you’ve noticed, but the Nintendo Switch isn’t as powerful as the other consoles out there, sometimes it runs like shit. Believe me on that one, Switch is still in a very buggy development phase. Let’s Go was kept small to test it’s capability and Sword and Shield can’t just fly in and give you all 1000 Pokémon just so one of the ones you want can be in there

You have to be much less obtuse with this, I mean this was a long time coming. You’re gonna have to live with the fact that not every Pokémon ever can be supported on one game alone. Disk, Download, Cartridge and Patch Sizes have limits in Compliance, you can’t just throw everything at it. Waah, the New Pokémon Don’t Look Good They do, you’re being petty. It happens every version, the people dislike the starter evolutions or just one in particular. Remember all the Oshawott hate? This all comes and goes because people have simply gone on the first instinct that ‘new and different is scary and should be shunned’ You’re that Simpsons meme when young Homer accuses Grandpa of not being ‘with it’ I won’t spoil to those who haven’t seen it, but I like the new starters, and some of the new Pokémon will need some growing but not every Pokémon looks good at first glance. If Mr Mime, Hypno or Gastly came out nowadays they’d be crapped on so much for lacking creativity or for looking weird. Look at Drampa as well, thing looks like Falkar from The Neverending Story, when I first saw it I thought it look weird but now I like it. You should offer these things time And actually fall back on past experience, you’re reacting like this isn’t the same thing that happens every version; the dex gets leaked, people whine about the evolutions, people get over it and accept that they overreacted. hIgH QuAlItY aNiMaTiOnS I’ve seen that video, 2 clips and you judge a whole game how classy of you? If you don’t see improvement you’re blind. You can’t shit on a game for keeping the battle animations, you can’t expect every Pokémon to move their own unique way to the exact position of the body part the opponent needs to get hit by, that’s just unrealistic. You’re also failing to equate to the new moves and all the new movesets. You have to ensure that each Pokémon is capable of calling this animation as well. The second clip in that video was Hop and Hau having the same rigging, and once again, that’s not abnormal. Rigging is not easy either, do it wrong and it sticks and deforms texture. There’s nothing wrong with Hop having one animation that matches Hau’s, you’ll probably find that many models actually have similar rigging as previous games. Because it’s not that big of a deal and it saves money, as an example look at Disney they copied hand-drawn motion and stuck a different character on them, Robin Hood’s Little John dances just like (animated, for those too young to know otherwise) Jungle Book’s Baloo The thing you’re also ignoring from that clip is the graphical improvement of Hop compared to Hau, Hau looks like a balloon with a smiley face but Hop’s face has depth and his mouth actually moves like a normal person, his clothes have far more contrast and complexity, but no just zero in on one fighting animation and one rigging that’ll surely be worth abusing a game that’s not even out... B-But Charizard I’ve already explained this before but Charizard is Leon’s main, it’s obviously going to have a Gigantamax, ergo it’s also going to be in the Dex. Does Charizard get a lot? Yes, but the reason is because Charizard is popular. One of the rarest cards is a Charizard Hologram Card, Charizard is one of the first version mascots, it is one of the most recognized Pokémon Ash has in the anime Reality of the matter is that like Pikachu, Charizard is a recognized Pokémon for all ages, it appeals to a demographic that’s not playing In Layman’s Terms: that part is not for you A reality you really need to face. Pokémon is a game for all ages, so elements of the game are not always going to be tailored to your age range. The gimmick of Dynamax and Gigantamax is for merch sales and young children because it’s got an audience there, you can’t expect the Biggest Entertainment Brand in the World to simply shut out a large fraction of its demographic just to appeal 100% to you And again, it’s not a big deal, so there’s a Charizard there, just save a Stone Edge and be done with it, if you hate Charizard so much this’ll be catharsis, but in actuality you’re complaining because it’s something to complain about Kanto are getting Everything That went down like a lead balloon didn’t it? Reminder that the first Gigantamax forms were Galar Pokémon, so you can’t really say that anymore. There are Galar forms from non-Gen I Pokémon too I assure you, but the reason Kanto gets a lot of them is because Kanto is the oldest. Let’s not pretend that other gens don’t get love either Or should I remind you of Mega Ampharos, Scizor, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Blaziken, Gardevoir, Gallade, Mawile, Aggron, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Absol, Garchomp, Lucario, Abomasnow, Steelix, Sceptile, Marshtomp, Sableye, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, Salamence, Metagross, Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, Lopunny, Audino and Diancie? It’s true that the Johto starters could use something, but I don’t think they’re being purposefully ignored, perhaps the right design hasn’t come along. Rather it be done right than poorly wouldn’t you agree? The Devs Should’ve Done <Insert Thing Here> People who say this kinda stuff have no idea how a game is made. I have a First Class Bachelor’s degree in Computer Gaming and Animation Technology and I can tell you that none of the stuff you want them to do is easy. Even getting grass right is a complete hassle. You want small insights you should watch Corridor Crew react to Good and Bad VFX, they tell you about the mechanics of CGI a few times on those vids. This is what annoys me with the prior swipe at the Battle animations and rigging, even with 2 years this is a heavily massive workload and Game Freak have only recently expanded the team that work on Pokémon which makes communication much more widespread and difficult to manage, likewise they are working on other games too they are not just Pokémon, currently their next IP is why Toby Fox was able to do a bit of music for Pokémon, because he’s collaborating with them on another game. The work doesn’t stop, most of these people are overworked and still doing overtime, they bring out a good product and all it gets is ‘but it should have this’, and unless it’s a huge part of the game that’s needed to function then that’s really disrespectful Before you start critiquing on what the people making this game ‘should’ve done’ perhaps you should try to make a game yourself, because it is not easy even for pros, I call back to Toby Fox because creating Undertale took 32 Months to create, that’s 2 years and 8 months for those slow with math, it also took 3 years before it could be ported to Switch because the Engine couldn’t support the platform, Pokémon has less time to do that, greater graphical and animation quality to achieve and more characters to battle, attacks to animate and more songs to compose. Conclusion: You’re All Just Bitter I’ve already seen it happen recently but this group of people senselessly bashing something because of ridiculous demands, expectations or arguments based on a lack of understanding all combine into something I’m simply calling the ‘Bitterness Fandom’. It’s people hating for the sake of hating and trying to bring something down just because it’s been a popular force for so long, and it’s not just Pokémon that’s getting it It’s already been happening to Star Wars. The Last Jedi and Solo were great films but the Bitterness sank its fangs in and act like neither are as good as the original trilogy (like killing Snoke without knowing anything about him and Phasma before she could do anything is any different to killing Sidious and Boba Fett in Jedi or Maul in Phantom Menace and Grievous in Revenge of the Sith), a lack of awareness to reality and the desire to complain for the sake of complaining continues to infect Star Wars. We even have a thing called ‘Star Wars Fatigue’ Star Wars can’t release a film every year because of ‘Fatigue’ but Marvel can release 5 MCU films a year and nobody bats an eye. Those frustrations aside, I refuse to let the Bitterness sink in without me calling them out, because you are not Pokémon Fans. If you were you’d know that having no National Dex isn’t new, you’d know that the graphics have improved and leaks of the game happen every time, you’d know why Charizard is popular and that some features are not intended to be targeted at you Shock and Horror to the heavens above but games can’t do everything And if you’re that naive to think so then you’re clearly not doing your homework So let’s throw out an absolutely WILD suggestion shall we? Let’s decide our opinion on a game After playing it? Because shitting on something you don’t even have hands-on experience with it is a fragile pedestal to put yourself on. If we all think it’s bad then, so be it, but I sincerely doubt that is the case When my copy of Pokémon Sword gets delivered to my house I am going to enjoy it because I will not let petty and incorrect statements sway my feelings and I swear to Arceus if you think the Bitterness will bring down Pokémon that easily then you did not see the queue to the London Poké Center that had been amassing since midnight and was forced to stop taking more people when the doors opened What should matter is how you enjoy the game, play it before you judge it And honestly, don’t send death threats, why we need to tell you that is beyond me, the ones who made these games are people who have worked their asses off day in and day out to provide something you aren’t even going to play because one Pokémon isn’t in it, the irony is not lost on me when I say this but deep into the very bottom of my heart: Grow Up. If you don’t like the game, don’t play it, don’t bother people about it, we don’t need your shit here Enjoy the Game People

#pokemon #pokémon #pokemon sword and shield #Pokémon Sword and Shield #pokemon swsh #rant

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eddtober · 5 years

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EDDTOBER MASTERPOST 2019!

ABOUT:

Eddtober is a list of prompts made in an effort to encourage the Eddsworld Fandom to spread their wings of creativity beyond the norms that they are used to, during the month of October.

It is all without harming others or causing drama, a neutral ground for all fans of Eddsworld to come and have fun, no matter what side of a discourse they’re in.

It hopes to promote inspiration beyond the usual over-dramatised content, to revive a spirit in Eddsworld that hasn’t been seen in many years, and to stretch the invitation to all who can create.

Eddtober calls not only the artists who have a talent for drawing and painting and so forth, but also: the authors (fanfics, journalists, essayists, diarists, poets, ramblers), the cosplayers, the video-makers (animators, video essays, memers, youtubers), the gamers (game devs, let’s plays) and more. Eddtober calls for all those who want to be inspired with unconventional creativity.

So Eddheads: come forth, be inspired and make something new!

With that out the way, steel yourselves - this post is gonna be a long one under the cut!

RULES:

Base Rules need to be set so everyone can participate in Eddtober safely and in a fun way. Please read them carefully!

Always tag it with #eddtober and tag appropriately! Of course, the first part is easy. In regards to the second part, there’s three categories. All they have in common is that they must be tagged with their own tag and NOT in the main eddtober tag. These specific tags musn’t be shortened or reimagined either, just to make sure. Side Note: If you don’t want to see ANY of these things mentioned in the categories, it’s recommended that you get some form of a blacklist extention, either Tumblr Savior, xKit, or even tumblr itself to hide those things from you. Though do beware - be careful when looking through the blog since… Yeah, it’s hard to blacklist stuff through there. a) Gore. Gore and related NSFW is allowed in the challenge, but please tag it as #Eddtober gore, alongside the appropriate trigger warnings of the subject as #tw -trigger here- . The creative piece should also be posted with a ‘keep reading’ redirection so it isn’t immediately seen by those who are repulsed by it. b) Shipping. As of 2019, shipping is now officially allowed and acceptable in the challenge! If you have any ships implied or shown in a prompt response, always use #eddtober shipping and what ship it is in a seperate tag. c) (In)Famous Fan Projects. As of 2019, a lot of dividing opinions have been flying around the community and splitting people apart. In an event of unity and neutrality, these opinions are still welcomed, but still have to be done carefully. If you’re in favour of a fan-project, go ahead and tag them alongside ’#eddtober fan project’. But if you’re not, then you don’t have to tag them - just use ’#eddtober fan project salt’. And yes, those are the exact tags. No need to alter them here.

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others. I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain creations, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you make and post it. If it’s intentionally insulting and offensive, don’t post or even create it at all.

Credit Where Due. This should be blatantly obvious right now, but please, please don’t steal other’s creative fanwork or post it without credit. Always have permission from the creator to post something of their’s, regardless of the social media, and always have their username when you post it, not just ‘credit to the artist/original person’. If you do not follow this, actions will be taken for your consequences. This also goes for spreading Eddtober - always place a link to this blog if you spread the list to other social medias!

Keep your situation and life chill. You can do one prompt for Eddtober, some of the prompts or all of them - up to you! It’s understandable if life gets in the way. The goal of Eddtober is not to do every prompt, but to be inspired to create fan-content in a way you usually wouldn’t have.

Spread the word. This is less of a rule and more of a personal request from Admin Chris, but since she doesn’t have many social media accounts you’d expect, spreading word of Eddtober (with appropriate credit back to this blog) would mean a LOT, so they can join in the fun too!

Sharing is caring. Reblogging and sharing from your fellow creators doing Eddtober would be great to give them a motivation and confidence boost! (Keep in mind that reposting is not the same as reblogging, unless proper credit is given with the original artists’ permission.)

Go Beyond the Boundaries of Your Imagination. The whole purpose of Eddtober is to promote new, fresh things to come up in the Eddsworld fandom and break a cycle of the same old that’s been there for a while. Take a leap, spread your wings, do your best, and go have fun.

BOUNDARIES:

Most of this list will be related to Rule Two of Eddtober:

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others.

Quote:

‘I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain creations, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you post.‘

Whilst Eddtober is a fun, neutral place to spread our creative wings, there are boundaries that need to be taken in order to keep everyone safe. Which means certain parts that are usually seen as ‘common’ within the Eddsworld Fandom will not be acceptable in the challenge. This list is just to make sure that we as the Eddtober community can set a good standard for the fandom and for ourselves.

Edd Gould’s death. Admin Chris wishes to make it clear that creative pieces that draws clear lines to Edd’s passing IS NOT okay. This includes Edd (IRL and the character) in hospital for cancer, Angel Edd or any AU that depicts him as a divine being of any sort (including Blessworld), in Heaven or Hell (as an actual denizen there, not a tourist like in Hello Hellhole. There’s a strong difference). Here at Eddtober, Edd's life is something to be celebrated, not his death. It’s uncomfortable to see this thing happen and should be steered clear of.

Fetishisation/Sexualisation of Religions and Faiths. This is another reason why AUs such as Blessworld aren’t okay. In regards to that AU, the sexualisation and the horrendous acts done within the Catholic church is a highly sensitive topic that’s still debated over even in real life. So things such as ‘sexy’ nuns and priests and so forth are a strong insult to them. This is only one example though, and I’m not saying you can’t explore faiths and combine them with Eddsworld, but I HIGHLY recommend doing your research on the faith or religion and its history before creating for Eddtober.

Edd’s old IRL Friends. This is regarding Prompts 27 and 28 for the most part. Whilst Edd Gould did draw his pals into comics and Eddisodes, making them their own characters (quite clearly), many of them might not want to be associated with Eddsworld or Edd after his passing or after the legacy season. So out of respect for their wishes, please do not involve Edd’s actual old IRL friends in your creative pieces unless they say they’re okay with it. This will vary from person to person, so do not also take one answer from one person and apply that as an umbrella motive. If you get no response from the person regarding this if you ask them yourself, then take it as a NO and don’t involve them in the creative piece. This doesn’t mean that you cannot use the Eddsworld character based off of them (unless they straight-up say so). You’re perfectly able to, but to avoid future confusion, a person’s Eddsworld character IS NOT the same as the real-life person. For example, using Tom from Eddsworld in a piece is okay, but using Thomas ‘TomSka’ Ridgewell himself for the same Eddsworld piece isn’t. (Disclaimer: Said example may not be 100% accurate unless there’s further information about this. This is a fictional example, after all.)

The real guys’ last names/surnames. I really didn’t want to say this in here and it hasn’t happened in Eddtober yet, but when Legacy ended, one of Tom’s last says was that the fans shouldn’t use the IRL last names of Eddsworld crewmembers (specifically actors and animators) for the characters. It’s an effort to seperate the characters from the real-life people. This means when creating your pieces, you don’t use: -Edd Gould -Tom Ridgewell -Matt Hargreaves -Tord Larsson And so forth. You’re welcome to come up with your own last names for the characters, but please don’t use the old IRL ones. Unfortunately since this habit is starting to pop back up in bits of the fandom, I want to make it clear that isn’t cool or tolerated, and action will be taken if I see it happen in here.

Sinsworld. Believe it or not, the sinsworld tag was specifically made back in the day to keep the porn out of the main. But due to a certain in-fandom event, this intended action has been long-lost. Because of all of these events, any sinsworld (porn, lewds and related sexual NSFW) that’s Sinspired by the Eddtober prompts WILL NOT be accepted into the blog or any other official Eddtober accounts by any means. This is because many in this fandom are minors/underage and more who are 18+ are repulsed to porn and such (Admin Chris is part of the latter group). It is fine to be sexually inspired by the prompts and create stuff for them, but PLEASE don’t tag that Sinsworld content with Eddtober.

Abusive/Self-Harm Creative Content, Gorey or not. No. Just. No. I don’t wish to deny vent or darker creations. It is good to release your frustrations and express personal issues in what you create, but there are safe and appropriate ways to do so in the challenge. Death wishing, abuse, suicide/suicide idealisation, self-harm and/or similar are NOT allowed to be depicted in the challenge and should NEVER be romanticised or supported. Eddtober aims to be a safe and uplifting place for all creative people, no matter what their space is at the moment.

Shipping. On a similar note - whilst shipping is allowed, there are of course some things we don’t allow out of respect for everyone: -Shipping of the IRL people. -Sexual or abusive ship dynamics and tropes. -Ship-bashing or insulting ships. I’m sure there will be more to add to the list as I continue getting asks regarding this, but in the meantime, please don’t let yourself fall into creating for this.

Gore beyond Eddsworld’s levels. Gore has been a staple of Eddsworld since the early episodes, and it won’t be refused in the challenge. However, there are limits to how far this gore will go as of 2019, and it will be made clear here. -Guts This was allowed in Eddtober 2018, but as of now this is no longer the case. A lot of Eddheads expressed discomfort at the idea of guts hanging out of bodies as of the 2019 preparation survey, and I agree with them. This will also be extended to zombification/zombies. -Romanticised/‘Fashionable’ Gore. Absolutely not. Using the creative properties of gore to make someone look more ‘attractive’ in a sexualised manner is against the earlier boundaries. -Gore of Edd Gould, or his old IRL friends. This hasn’t happened, but it is good to make this clear in case some people are really naive about this: DO NOT DO THIS. That’s just straight-up offensive. -Gore of Prompts 27 to 30 (and potentially 31). Obviously. Since these last few prompts are about expressing your love and appreciation to the fandom, it doesn’t make sense on why you’d make something gutsy-gorey about some wholesome times. Especially in regards to Prompts Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight (Which was also just technically mentioned above, but the point has been made).

(In)Famous fan-projects. In the past year or so, certain fan projects have gathered a strong following - both for love and hate. Unfortunately, due to this hate being especially loud in 2019, action had to be taken for this. It’s not to say that you can’t express your opinions of a project, but there’s a safe way for all in doing so. For the others around you, and for yourself too. So if you’re going to create things that relate to either side of the argument you’re on, I will NOT allow straight-up insulting stuff to either side. Be it horrendous caricatures of the creators, vaguing about others through a story, plain old bashing or other means, I will NOT let it be shared around. More so, if this is kept up, I’ll most likely disregard your creations entirely since I don’t wish to endorse hurtful people. Especially through this event.

With all that said and done, let’s get to the ACTUAL prompts!

Quick reminder: when this list says ‘create something for’, it’s not just referring to fanart. It refers to any medium - digital, traditional or unconventional - that can be used. The challenge here is to be creative as possible, not to stay conventional.

The List features Admin Chris’s Commentary. Some useless, some useful.

Create something for Edd. (Not his real-life counterpart, but the character. That needed some clearing up based on 2017’s results.)

Create something for Tom.

Create something for Matt

Create something for any pre-legacy season episode, except WTFuture. (You can do WTFuture if you want, but seeing that much of this fandom is currently made of people who came in after The End… It’d be worth having a crack at other pre-legacy episodes.)

Create something for or with the crew’s symbols. (An example of symbols being a cola can for Edd, something blue for Tom, a mirror for Matt, etc.)

Create something for Superhero Alter Egos! (It doesn’t have to stop at PowerEdd’s canon either! Go nuts! Give Edd and his friends new superhero alibis and outfits!)

Create something for Supervillain Alter Egos! (Reminder that it doesn’t have to stop at the ‘Green/Blue/Purple/Red Leader scenario! Again, go nuts! Get wacky if you must!)

Create something for Minor characters of the show. (Except the Neighbours - they already have their own prompt.)

Create something for descendants of the main four guys. (Sure, you can make it about the love children of your favourite ships, but the point of this prompt specifically is to not be ship-related. See if you can come up with descendant characters from the bloodlines of the main four. If not, shipping is fine.)

Create something for Tord. (He’s late in this list for a reason. Trust me.)

Create something for the neighbours of 29 Dirdum Lane. Are Kim and Katya still there, or are there newbies in the street?

Create something for the neighbours of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for unlucky things happening to the guys, or one of them. Feel free to go as dark or as humourous as you like!

Create something for genderbends of the guys, maybe as if the Ellsworld we know never existed. Or you can stick to canon, up to you.

This prompt is a wild card. Do with it as you wish. (In 2017 everyone was told to quote: ‘go whole hog on this’. The next thing we all knew, everybody literally drew pigs with the guys. That wasn’t supposed to be literally taken, but by god it was hilarious.)

Create something for your crew. Whether you’re the main character with your friends or have OCs taking that place or a mix of both is up to you.

Create something for an AU of Eddsworld. You can make one up on the spot, or even fan content for an AU that already exists is cool too. (As of rule number two of Eddtober, the Blessworld AU will not be accepted for this prompt. I know it is popular, but if you have any issues with this, please contact me in the blog asks myself.)

Create something for Eddsworld as a video game. Whether it’s concepts and covers for your own ideas or fanart for games in the making such as Eddsworld Armageddon, up to you. Heck, why not make a demo?

Create something for Todd, or whoever the ‘Tord’ figure is of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for a Saloonatics-WTFuture Crossover. (What? Shenanigans could be made here, guys. Just take it!)

Create something for the future selves of the guys. Or if you want to take it up a notch, make your own versions of them! Have them all be hobos (#HoBrosforlife), or have cola not be banned in the future… up to you!

The End who? Create something for and/or elaborate on how you would finish off the Eddsworld Legacy season. (For the purposes of this prompt, I can accept an angsty end for this, but I personally do not recommend it.)

Create something for Zanta. (I guess you could call him a Nightmare Before Christmas, then.)

Create something for an Eddsworld movie. Whether it’s stuff for the Eddsworld Fan Movie or your own ideas, up to you!

Create something for the deal with Tom’s eyes. If you want to call them that.

Pick a song, any song, and put that on repeat. Use it as inspiration to create something in relation to Eddsworld.

Create something for Edd Gould himself. Not his character in Eddsworld, the real-life person.

An obligatory prompt without Eddtober in the beginning: create something for Edd’s birthday. (This was made into a prompt and will permanently remain as one as Edd’s birthday shouldn’t be taken away from today.)

Create something for someone/multiple someones in the fandom who inspire you - even the small artists and writers and such who are just starting out!

Create something for who or what got you into EW. What's your story? How did you get here? (Do you have 90 minutes?)

Create something for you being inserted into Eddsworld in any way. (Because here in Eddtober, cringe culture is dead and we don’t hesitate to self-insert.) Be it you hanging with the guys or going on an eddventure, the context and situation is up to you!

VETERANS! Have you already done a prompt and don’t want to repeat yourself? Then check out the list of Eddstra Prompts here!

Phew! Alright, that’s everything. If you have any suggestions or questions about the challenge, please feel free to shoot an ask through the blog. Thanks for reading and have a safe and awesome Eddtober!

#Eddsworld #eddtober #eddtober 2019 #founder chris talks

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